


The Librarian

by PseudoFox



Category: Pack Street - Fandom, Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Anthropomorphic, Awkwardness, Drama, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Furry, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Minor Original Character(s), Original Character(s), Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 21:23:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19934716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoFox/pseuds/PseudoFox
Summary: Marty, a young stoat living in the Zootopian neighborhood of Pack Street, finds himself alone at his job at the local library. He's had an awful day. The facility's next visitor, however, may do more than brighten the mammal's spirits.





	1. Chapter 1

**[Chapter One]**

**One late Saturday afternoon in the middle of Zootopia...**

Marty's job at Pack Street's local library offered him a lot. One thing that he took for granted almost all of the time— only really noticing when he had gotten into serious trouble— was the escapism. Each of the many tall shelves represented yet another shield from the real world past the library's doors. Outside, the flat midday sun and strong wind battered his senses— the stoat slithering in between bigger mammals' legs as few noticed him and fewer still cared about him. Inside, the artificial lights and cool air conditioning soothed the stoat— he wiggled his way in between shelves with confidence. Visitors didn't simply look him in the eye. They asked him genuine questions expecting that he could competently give them genuine help.

The stoat paused as he came upon a trashy romance novel that somebody had left on the edge of a table. He couldn't help but look at his reflection on the extra-glossy cover. He didn't like it.

"Bruise after bruise under the cheeks," Marty whispered to himself, his paws covering his neck, "and that inky blackness is going to stay there for days and days, probably. God, maybe I should grab some make-up or something."

Scream-filled scenes of bone-crunching violence from that morning's short but painful fight between packs flashed across his eyes. Those ragged wolves wouldn't show their face on Pack Street again, most likely, but that didn't mean that Marty enjoyed the memory one bit. He certainly felt the signs all over himself even hours later. Getting punched and kicked across his legs meant one thing— the stoat had endured that before— but experiencing a bulky beta clutch his neck and almost choke him meant something else entirely.

"At least nobody's asked me about it." Marty shut his eyes and picked up the novel. He raised his shirt collar up to cover up at least part of the bruises. "Not yet." 

The stoat stepped on over to the fiction section and hunted for the right bookshelf. It only took him a matter of seconds. He'd normally have moved even faster, but the injuries to his legs meant that he'd spent the rest of the day walking an easy pace. Duly filing the novel properly, Marty glanced at the massive clock on the wall above. He had only a half hour left until his shift ended. The facility itself seemed as empty as a graveyard.

"Hey, Marty?" a voice called out from the distance, though with a soft tone given the whole library setting and all.

The stoat made his way to the facility's main desk that faced the visitors as they came in. He hopped up a cardboard box onto the counter and held up both paws. "Yes, Brian? What is it?" Marty asked.

"I know that I've only got a little more 'desk duty' time left," the coyote in the light brown jacket answered, Brian's eyes faltering as he twisted his head a bit, "but I'm just totally out of it. Nothing special... and I've got no excuse... still, I'm asking if it's fine for me to leave early."

"Early," Marty repeated, the stoat scratching his chin.

"I literally plan on just going home and taking a nap."

"Brian," the stoat began, thinking. Thankfully for Marty's sore legs, no other task requiring any walking remained. The empty library simply needed at least one mammal to cover the front desk in case a visitor wandered in. "That's okay with me. Be sure to clock out correctly, though, this time."

Brian awkwardly waved before reaching down and grabbing a small backpack. Marty took the moment to step to the edge of the desk and check on the pile of newly-received books that he had earlier set aside. They appeared untouched. The stoat grinned.

"See you around," Brian said as the coyote made his way out the door.

Marty nodded. He then simply stared off into the distance for a while, allowing himself to completely relax. Marty spotted through a window some tall mammal approaching the library, but the prospective visitor stopped to chat with the freshly departed coyote instead of coming inside. Marty let himself zone out and have his thoughts wander.

Brian made for a quiet, respectful neighbor— the coyote politely introducing himself when he'd first met both Charlie and Marty— but a mediocre library volunteer. He went through the motions but barely engaged with anybody else and offered nothing but a blank stare if a patron asked an intellectual question of any kind. Still, the library had to take what it could get.

"Hey, good afternoon!"

Marty snapped to full attention— his hazy eyes popping totally open— and reached out a paw. A tall fox with bright orange, almost crimson-looking fur wearing small silver eyeglasses and a huge, baggy t-shirt covered entirely in a rainbow stood before the stoat. Marty instinctively looked up at the visitor's immense, tooth-filled smile. The stoat then took a moment to scan up and down, and he silently read the texts embossed on the rainbow stripes— it going 'sexuality', 'life', 'healing', 'sunlight', 'nature', 'magic', 'serenity', and 'spirit'.

"Hello, sir," Marty replied.

"Hello," the fox repeated. He and Marty shook paws.

"Returning something? Picking something up?" 

"Just returning," the fox answered, unzipping his big fanny pack, "and I wanted to personally thank you, Marty."

"Really," the stoat began, feeling proud of himself even though he couldn't recall any details, "you don't have to do that, sir."

The fox had an instantly familiar face. The Pack Street facility didn't get that many adult patrons, and even fewer stopped to ask genuine questions about recommendations. Fewer still spent the time and money to fill out advice cards and make donations. Marty mentally kicked himself for not being able to recall a name— at least, however, the stoat remembered that he'd given the fox something originally written in a foreign language with a hugely philosophical bent to it. Marty figured that he needed a big mug of black coffee.

"No, I do," the fox said, and he plopped a short yet aged book in a plain grey cover onto the counter, "because this thing is— pardon me for being painfully cliche— a life-changing work."

"I'll just file this: 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich'," Marty began. Reading the title aloud triggered a mental lightbulb. "Oh! Oh, yeah! We had gotten talking last week about the whole 'being there' and 'meaning of life' question, and how rarely something smaller than a phone book took it on without badly screwing everything up, right? You and I, talking last week?"

"Right!"

"The author does such a fantastic job setting up this careerist mammal," Marty went on, gently rubbing a paw upon the novella's spine, "who spends his whole life trying to be all agreeable and polished. He gets confronted with death— as arbitrary and senseless— as it ever is, and it forces a whole, deep reflection."

"Living without meaning, which the guy had been doing his entire life so far," the fox commented, "represented its own artificial state. He had a family, but he only went through the motions with them. He never truly 'engaged' with others— he never left a legacy in which different mammals could say that they felt touched by him in some way. And coming to terms with that fact destroys the guy psychologically."

"It's a powerful piece," Marty concluded. He stopped, however, and bit his lip. The inability to remember the fox's name ate away at him. "And I'm always glad to recommend things, sir."

"If anybody ever gives you any crap for being a literary elitist or whatever, tell them that, at least, Red appreciates it one-hundred percent," the fox concluded before slowly turning around.

"Have a good weekend, Red," Marty declared.

"Thanks," the fox said, "you too."

After Red made his way out the door, Marty clutched the old book between his arms and hoisted it above his head. He gently hopped off of the counter but stopped for a moment, leaning against a trash can.

"God, I wonder what it would take to make, say, Remmy check out some classic Russian literature. Even something short." The stoat laughed at the thought as he placed the novella beneath a stack of papers on the bottom of a shelf. "Maybe if it was a pop-up book."

**The following Sunday afternoon...**

Marty shut the thick tome in between his paws and slid off of the sofa. He happily rubbed his paws along its sides and gave his back a little stretch. Nonfiction had always held a warm place in the stoat's heart, and he'd been meaning to check out one of the more recent books about the financial crisis as well as the terrible economic aftermath. He then gently placed the big grey object onto one of the apartment's many tiny tables before making his way to the refrigerator. The empty space that greeted him brought down the stoat's previously neutral face to a frown.

"Damn it, Charlie," he muttered to himself, "would it kill you to slip a trip to the grocery store in between those underworld spy missions?"

The fox being off on some hustle that, understandably enough, she didn't explain the details of meant that Marty had the apartment all to himself. With no shifts scheduled at his job and no errands on his to-do list, the stoat had set up the perfect lazy Sunday. A stack of freshly delivered 'new release' books awaited him.

"And, of course, this is just as empty," Marty murmured as he pulled out his wallet. He idly kicked against the floor before seizing a water bottle shoved far into the refrigerator's insides. "Oh, hell, I wonder how much of the pack is at home. I could always stop by—"

A loud knock at the front door caused the stoat to spin around and trip on his own leg. Accidentally tossing the water bottle clear across the kitchen, he sucked in a deep breath. A few seconds passed. The knocking resumed.

"Well, okay," he whispered, "somebody decided to come over here, then."

Marty stood up straight before patting all along his plain black t-shirt and matching pants. He then marched over to the front door. Swinging the big hunk of cheap wood open, he had little idea who to expect.

"Oh, I know you!" Marty called out, putting a bit of energy to his voice. He looked straight up and pointed. "It's... 'Red'? Right?"

After the fox nodded, Marty immediately felt somewhat uncomfortable. The fox standing before him had on the shortest pair of shorts on a mammal that the stoat had ever seen— the hot pink cloth left little about Red's bulge to the imagination. Titling his head slightly upwards didn't help. That just meant that the stoat stared at Red's muscular chest and abs beneath the fox's tight white t-shirt instead.

"Hey," the fox began, slowly reaching behind his back, "we've never really 'met', per se, socially. I've talked to you a bunch of times, though, at the library. A friend and, apparently, next door neighbor of yours there told me yesterday that this is where you lived."

"I see. How's your Sunday going?" The stoat idly thrust his paws out behind his back and wiggled them a bit.

"Great!" The fox shut his eyes and rapidly nodded. A paw scratched along the top of his t-shirt, which featured a gigantic heart with the words 'we all are one' printed in stark black font.

"I see," Marty murmured. The stoat hated making small talk. At the same time, though, he figured that he owed it to the fox to try and act at least somewhat nice. "So..."

"So?" Red oddly had both arms around his back.

"Why're you here?" Marty asked. He tried his best to drain the question of emotion as he could, much as he felt like putting on an accusatory tone.

"I got you these, Marty," the fox interjected.

The stoat blinked. He found himself suddenly clutching a large set of bright yellow tulips. Without really thinking, Marty rubbed his face on the petals and breathed in. He felt a small but deeply warm feeling inside, something that he had missed for quite a while.

"They're nice," Marty said in a wistful voice. A few silent seconds passed. The stoat snapped back to reality, and powerful sensations of pure confusion flooded his senses. "I just... well... what's the occasion?"

"I'm really not sure how to put this," Red began, leaning his body against the door and tapping a paw upon the cheap wood, "and I guess that I might as well spit it right out." He shut his eyes and scraped his paw straight downwards. "You're really handsome and really smart."

"Uh, thanks," Marty replied, the tulips brushing up against his uncertainty-coated face.

"I somehow figured that you lived quite a ways away. When I learned that you were actually fairly close, well," the fox continued, "I thought that I might up and do it. Come here." He took a gulp. "Ask you out on a date."

"Date," Marty repeated. The word entered his ear and loudly bounced around his insides, tearing up his organs piece by piece until he felt just about ready to collapse on his knees.

"Yep!" Red resumed his cheerful expression and popped his body off of the door. As he clasped his paws together upon his chest, he took a wide stance and stood straight over the far smaller stoat.

Feeling that anticipatory gaze almost melting little holes on the top of his skull, Marty titled his head back more. His eyes locked with the bigger mammal's own. Several seconds of pure silence then passed.

"I, well, I just," Marty began, but he immediately shut his mouth. Torrents of varying emotions made war throughout every last inch of the stoat's body. It seemed like an impossible task to even keep his eyes open. "I don't really know anything about you other than your name, Red."

"Then let's get to know each other."

"Red, I," Marty started to say, and a stray thought shot up to the top of his consciousness that honesty was the best policy, "to be frank, I'm not sure at all how to respond."

The stoat didn't swing that way. Male bodies did nothing for him. He'd played around in high school despite that, wondering if maybe he simply needed to find the right guy, and that had amounted to nothing but broken friendships. Thinking things over, nonetheless, Marty wondered if all that even mattered.

He had gotten called 'handsome'. He hadn't heard that word lobbed out in his direction without sarcasm for years. He had gotten called 'smart'— same deal. Even by themselves, the fox's big, wanting eyes ate at him. Marty had the pack, sure, but bouts of genuine affection from them were few and far between. Even getting gifts from them on his birthday felt awkward and forced. In contrast, this strange mammal had simply shown up out of nowhere and shoved flowers into his face.

"I understand if, like, you want to simply stop and think about it," Red murmured, but he remained still in a statue as his body towered over the stoat's smaller figure, "since just showing up at your place is a pretty damn presumptuous step. I know."

Marty remained totally lost in thought. He mulled over how the girls in the pack understood what it felt like to be a 'love object'— to have other mammals actively pursue them. They got put on a pedestal. They got chased around. All that simply didn't happen to most guys— especially mammals with his appearance in his position. They either did the pursuing or, more likely, faded into the background.

The fox unlocked something deep. The stoat had gotten a taste of what it felt like to be on the pedestal. He was the one that was wanted and desired. The flip didn't simply feel nice. It felt agonizingly intoxicating— limb after limb tingled in delight simply from taking in Red's romantic gazing and panting.

"Why should I give a shit if he's got the wrong parts between his legs," Marty accidentally whispered out loud.

"Come again?" Red asked, looking genuinely confused.

A loud grumble from the pit of Marty's stomach sealed the deal. It was stupid to turn down a free meal in the first place. Turning one down when he had noting but a pair of dimes on him, though, was Remmy-level retarded.

"Oh, I mean: 'yes'! The answer is a 'yes'!" Marty suddenly called out.

"You mean it?" Red clutched his arms against his midriff and rubbed his legs together, anticipation surging throughout his senses.

"Sure." Marty glanced back behind himself before fumbling through his pockets. "I only need to—" He paused as he realized that he already had his keys, wallet, and cheap flip-phone on him. Shifting the tulips around in his paws for a split-second, he re-spotted his water bottle on the floor beside the coat closet. "I don't have a vase, but I can slide off the cap and put these beauties in here for now." He placed the flower-filled bottle on a nearby shelf. "That's it. I'm all ready to go."

After shutting the front door and locking it, the fox and stoat pair made their way down the sidewalk into the adjacent street. Marty had a flood of questions that he wanted to ask Red, but he kept his mouth shut as he tried to tamp down the many sensations bubbling up inside of him. He knew that he needed to relax. He needed to live more for the moment.

"I, uh, parked a little bit far off," Red sheepishly admitted, "since I don't really have that good a sense of direction. Yes, even after living here for half a decade." He sucked in a deep breath. "Okay, I should admit it: it's a lot far off."

"I don't mind walking," the stoat lied. He figured that he could probably make it without more than a few tinges of pain.

"I don't know what you had in mind," the fox went on, "but I wanted to eat at Lulu's if that's okay."

Marty thought about admitting that he'd feel fine simply going to BugBurga, but he held his tongue. He hadn't stepped into a mid-range restaurant— with cloth napkins, glossy menus, puffy seats, and everything— in months. The stoat simply nodded back at the fox.

Pack Street appeared oddly deserted for a weekend. The two mammals didn't mind. They turned a corner and came upon a long stretch of asphalt— a lime green Toyota Camelry sitting at the very end beside a patch of feeble-looking oak trees.

"I don't know, but seeing a patch of greenery made me want to stop there," Red remarked.

"Fine." The stoat tried his best to hide his irritation as his legs began to bother him. 

"You know," Red began, "I actually wanted to ask—"

"Hold on," Marty mouthed, and he leaned up against a lamppost. His paws slid up and down his right leg while a grimace shot across his face. "It's embarrassing since I've been in my apartment all day today, but I'm still really sore from early yesterday. God, it hurts even more today for some insane reason too."

"Were you working out?" Red asked.

"Taking kicks and punches," Marty admitted. Scenes from Saturday morning's awful fight flashed across his eyes yet again. The stoat immediately smacked the side of his head to shove the thoughts back into his subconscious. 

"You don't have to say any more," Red replied, and he leaned down on his knees.

Marty went on to rub all across his left leg. When he finished, he found the fox still kneeling and anxiously scratching the concrete right in front of him. The stoat let out a soft noise of confusion.

"I'm not sure how to phrase this without both of us cringing, but I'm going to ask anyways," Red began, "so: do you want me to hold your paw while we walk? Or do something else to help?"

"Hey, I only agreed to a date, damn," Marty responded with a laugh. He stood up straight, but he immediately had to try hard not to wince. Both legs buckled. "And now you're... look, Red, I'll be fine."

"I know that you'll be fine. I'm not asking because you need me to. I'm asking because I feel like complete shit now since it was all my fault for parking so damn far away."

"I," Marty started to say, but he stopped to rub his lower half a bit more. He took in the fox's begging expression, and his churning emotions came to somewhat of a stop. "Okay. I admit it. I need help."

"No problem."

"Oh, hell," Marty mouthed. He closed his eyes and stretched his arms high above his head. Nobody was around, and thus nobody would see. 

"What're you doing?"

"If my legs are going to kill me this much, then to hell with you just helping me walk. I might as well let you pick me up and carry me."

"Are you," the fox started to say, his arms wavering a bit against his sides, "sure about that?"

"I am," Marty declared.

Within a split-second, the stoat had gotten hoisted into the air. The fox folded his arms against his chest. Marty found himself cradled in a loose semi-circle, the big heart on Red's tight shirt brushing all over his body. The last time such a thing had happened— the stoat throwing his back out while moving furniture and having to have Charlie physically put him to bed— it had seemed so belittling and demeaning that Marty nearly ground his teeth into powder.

With Red, however, everything had a kind of neutral feeling to it. Sucking in deep breaths, Marty managed to convince himself that he had nothing to fear— he still remained the same independent adult as a moment ago. He simply had gotten a small favor from a larger mammal. It didn't represent anything.

"Are you okay?" the fox abruptly asked.

"I'm fine."

"It's just that," Red began, the fox hesitating for several seconds before finishing the thought, "this is kind of... well... intimate."

"I know." The stoat let a bit of irritation filter though his voice.

"Is this going too fast? We're almost to my car, but I know that we haven't even sat down to eat something together yet."

"Red." The stoat made an angry sigh. "This only feels weird if you make it weird. Don't talk me into making it feel weird."

A few seconds of silence followed. The two mammals slowly walked while having their eyes mostly closed. As comfortable as it seemed, Marty's insecurities still plagued him— much as he tried to force those thoughts from his mind.

"Would ear scratches make it feel weird?" Red asked all of a sudden.

"Oh, Red, for the love of God," Marty murmured. The stoat pulled his body away and scurried down the fox's leg. He sucked in a deep breath as his paws rubbed his temples. "Yes! Yes, adding a little groping to this scenario would make it feel weird as hell!"

"Marty." The fox let out an embarrassment-coated sigh. "I'm so sorry. I just think that you need them."

"You think," Marty repeated, "but... you're assuming quite a lot."

"You let me pick you up," Red began, "so I—"

"Consenting to being carried isn't even in the same ballpark as starting foreplay, my God, and out in public no less," Marty interjected.

"Please believe me when I say that I'm really sorry," the fox pleaded, the beginnings of tears starting to form below his big eyes.

"Red," Marty began, and he walked over to the fox's side. Without a word, he ran a paw against Red's knee. "Don't cry."

"Is the date off?" The fox loudly sniffed as he shut his eyes tightly.

"Red, please pick me up again," Marty declared. The fox promptly did so. Cradled against Red's tight t-shirt once more, the stoat cleared his throat. "Okay, look: on a scale of one to ten, ten being the highest, how badly do you want to scratch around my ears?"

"You promise not to be offended by the answer?" Red asked.

"I promise."

"Ten." The fox shut his eyes and titled his head in a circle. "When my gym buddies and I get sore after a long workout, we often do that after showering to just relax. It's basically the greatest thing ever. I swear that it happens between us every other week." The fox slowly opened his eyes. "And it doesn't have to mean anything, like, romantically or whatever if you don't want it to."

"I don't think that I agree, but," Marty started to say. He stopped to suck in a huge breath. "I... okay, Red, if you want it so bad, then you've got it." He brushed his head upon the fox's neck. "Just understand that if you'd have done this without my consent, then I would've socked you in the nuts and rushed back to my apartment before locking the door."

"I get it."

"And understand that even letting myself be carried in the first place is, sure as all hell, pretty out of character for me. This is... something else..." Marty shut his eyes and shrugged. "Go slow, okay? Go really Goddamn slow."

A scratchy sensation popped up on the back of the stoat's head. He shivered. It popped up yet again. He blinked rapidly and stretched out a bit. Before he even understood what was happening, an outpouring of raw pleasure poured through his senses from the top of his head on downward. Marty wiggled uncontrollably as his mouth shot open and his tongue stuck out. He felt his ears getting bent and curled around, and the subsequent burst of powerful heat almost seemed too much.

It finally sunk in that Red had begun to poke and prod his paw's claws into Marty's fur— the fox going beyond mere scratching. That thought triggered a big, flashing warning in the stoat's conscious mind. Yet Marty remained a slave to his emotions. Having those glorious little circles dug into the top of his head brought on something so strong— it seemed to him that he'd never been as happy before in his entire life.

Accidentally stepping on a wobbly patch of concrete caused Red to shift around his arms. Although still held safely in place against the fox's chest, the clawing abruptly ceased. Marty snapped entirely back to reality. The warning sign finally got noticed.

"Red."

"Yes?" the fox asked.

"That's way too fast," Marty remarked.

The fox let out a long, loud moan of frustration. Marty, for his part, remained as frozen as a statue. When Red shifted the stoat around a bit against his chest, Marty then gently rubbed a paw upon the fox's cheek.

"Relax, Red," Marty declared, "I'm not mad. We're at your Camelry, anyways."

Marty got plopped down into a car seat and delicately buckled in place. As the vehicle sputtered to life, the stoat softly bit his lip in an attempt to get off his emotional roller-coaster. The pain helped. He then opened his eyes entirely and idly glanced out the window, seeing the vehicle turn into a short alley that would bring them to the furthermost edge of Pack Street.

"Holy shit," Marty whispered to himself, being sure to keep his voice down, "now I really know how girls feel."


	2. Chapter 2

**[Chapter Two]**

**A few minutes later...**

The sheer number of vehicles parked outside of the restaurant, large and small, got Marty worried. Getting carried by a larger mammal meant one thing when literally nobody else saw. It represented a whole other thing if Red did it across a crowded parking lot— especially one with ever-judging and ever-mocking young children all around. Marty vowed to say 'no' even if Red spent the next ten solid minutes insisting otherwise.

Beyond that, as well, the stoat couldn't stand waiting in those cramped little rooms for a spare booth or table to open up. He'd never set paw in Lulu's before, but he thought that it couldn't be that different than the average mid-ranged place. Their by-the-door seats always seemed agonizingly itchy. Even worse, the other individuals sitting beside him always seemed as obnoxiously loud as possible.

Those feelings dampened as a departing Buck LaCrosse gave Red's Toyota Camelry an ideal parking spot. Seeing Red fiddle with a smartphone as the fox popped out of the driver's side also helped— Marty figured that Red had likely used some application or something to set up a reservation ahead of time. The stoat winced a bit as he walked over to the dark green building's massive double-doors. Still, having leaning forward and massaged all along his legs for the minute or so— before getting out of the car— made a big difference. Marty's fox companion followed only a few steps behind.

"Hold on!" Red abruptly called out. He sprinted a bit and thrust out a paw high above Marty's head. "I'm the one opening doors, pulling out chairs, paying for things, and the like this afternoon. Don't you forget it."

"Chivalry isn't dead, eh?" Marty remarked, putting on a grin.

Stepping inside, the stoat felt taken aback by the sheer number of mammals that fit in the comparatively small building. He saw couples and families alike as far as his eyes could see. While Marty figured that he and Red had technically driven out of Pack Street proper, the restaurant still featured a surprisingly diverse assortment of mammals for the general neighborhood— a pair of elderly wolves simply chatting together sitting right beside a group of teenage deer getting obsessed with their big salads, Romanesque columns stretching out around them all. Marty scratched his neck as he tried to think back. He hadn't been in a place with such a fifty/fifty predator to prey split in, most likely, years.

"Table for two, right?" a gazelle in a sharp-looking black dress asked. Her smile seemed to stretch across her entire face. "You have a reservation?"

Marty spun around. He witnessed Red exchanging words with the cute prey girl that he didn't quite make out. At any rate, the stoat found himself having his left paw clutched tightly and his whole body tugged into an empty table in what seemed like the exact center of the restaurant.

Red, as he had promised, pulled out Marty's chair. The stoat hopped into place and clutched his cloth napkin. Red slid the chair forward a bit and then promptly took his own seat.

"You have any idea what you're going to order?" Marty inquired. Without looking at the menu, which appeared even taller than he was, the stoat figured that it featured a scattering of predator-preferred fare with the standard greenery that places outside of fast food usually served.

"Crunchy, golden-brown breaded fish," Red answered, the fox resting a paw upon the table, "I don't care what kind. The main thing, for me, is having a heaping helping of those sweet potato fries."

"God, that sounds nice." The stoat hadn't had sweet potatoes in quite a while.

Still, Marty picked up the menu and delicately balanced it on its edge, slowly but surely opening up the glossy pages. The array of salads that greeted him had little appeal. The following page displayed a variety of ways for cooking dark vegetables— Marty felt even less impressed. Thinking things over for a few seconds, the stoat flung up an arm and let the menu tumble back down onto the table.

"Something wrong?" Red asked.

"Nothing," Marty began, idly scratching all along his chest, "I just probably should confess something: I'm not much of a restaurant type."

"Oh?"

"It's not the atmosphere. I can take the crowds. I can take the noise." Marty awkwardly coughed. "It's that, well, I'm the kind of mammal where BugBurga is a staple food. You see?"

"Yeah," Red started to say, "the fancier you go, the more reluctant they are to put something insect-based on the menu. Lulu's serves a lot of fish cuisine but isn't willing to go that far. Honestly? I think even splitting the difference probably costs them more in the long run, and this place will probably flip to being full vegetarian eventually."

"That's a shame." Marty let out a sigh.

Red laughed. That surprised the stoat— Marty leaning both arms on the table and cocking his head to the side. Before either mammal could say anything, however, a goat in a plain grey suit and carrying a thick notepad appeared between them.

"Hello! I'll be your server today!" The goat reached out and straightened the rose-filled vase that sat in the center of the table. "The name's Marcus! Can I get you both started with some drinks?"

"I'll have an iced tea with lemon," Red declared.

"I'll," Marty began, but he immediately stopped. Asking for grape soda was probably futile. The higher-class place likely had none of the cheap flavored sodas that he enjoyed so much. "Oh, hell, I'll have the same."

"I assume that you both need a bit more time before ordering," Marcus went on.

"Nah," Red answered, and he picked up his menu, "I'll have the breaded cod with sweet potato fries, please."

"Great! And you?" The goat turned to the stoat.

"Same." Marty figured that Red probably had as good of a taste in food as the fox did in literature.

"Excellent!" The goat scribbled on his notepad before seizing both menus. Spinning around and heading off to another table, Marcus left the happy, bubbly fox and the more neutral feeling stoat to simply look at each other. Several seconds of silence passed.

"So, uh, why the laugh?" Marty asked.

"Oh, well," Red began, and he put on somewhat of a sheepish expression as an arm swung behind his head, "I'll have to break it to you sometime. I might as well do it now." He stuck out his lips and rolled his eyes back a bit. "Marty, I've never had bug-meat in my entire life."

"Really?" Marty stood up straight, a flash of genuine surprise in his voice.

"Yep," Red answered, "it's kind of a psychological thing for me. On the one paw, there are creatures such as crickets that aren't simply adorable but also make great pets. I can't even begin to put myself into the mindset where I'd eat them. On the other paw, there are pests: cockroaches, flies, locusts, and the rest. It kind of feels even worse in that circumstance. I can't square the circle of eating something that would preferably eat me. Killing something that wants to kill me. Sure, I'll happily squash a roach. That's like self-defense, though, and their body goes in the trash can. Eating one? It's like running a vacuum cleaner backwards."

"Huh." The stoat leaned a little closer to the table.

"I mean, well, look at somebody like Bellwether. She's a monster. But we don't operate on the logic of 'she's evil and wants to kill us, therefore we should carve her up into little ewe fillets because fair-is-fair'." Red paused, and he shook his head. "Strange analogy, I know."

"Well, I actually like the idea of turning Bellwether into lunch, myself," Marty remarked.

"You do you," Red commented with a smile.

"So, when it comes to predators like me, you—"

"I don't judge, Marty," Red remarked with a loud chuckle, "I just happen to be somebody that eats a whole lot of fish while also taking daily multivitamins. It works for me. I'm not going to force my preferences on anybody else."

"That's a refreshing attitude."

Marcus plopped two drinks onto the table. Both mammals took huge gulps. Red let out a happy sigh. Marty, though, got lost once again in a bit of self-reflection.

"Speaking of, uh, having things forced on you," Red started to say. He paused, though, and slid both paws against the edge of the table.

"Yeah?" 

"I'm not sure how to ask this," Red went on, "or if this is even an actual question in the first place. I'll just spit it out. So, Marty, I guess: it's hard out there for a little guy. Right?"

"Right," Marty repeated. He shut his eyes and brushed along the sides of his face.

"I mean it." Red took in a deep breath. "I can't imagine what it must feel like to have mammals treat you like just a piece of scenery. The background. And it's more than that. I'm talking way beyond dealing with idiots that would, like, nearly step on you. It's that sense of having most of Zootopia fundamentally built for a larger set and operating at a different level. Always getting walked over. Having mammals look down at you. Feeling belittled and condescended to on a regular basis. Right?"

The stoat brushed even more rapidly before awkwardly coughing. Eyes still shut, he lowered his voice to a murmur. "Yes, that's right."

"Marty..."

Opening his eyes, the stoat realized that the fox had stretched out his arms across the entire table. Red clearly wanted to hold paws. Marty didn't know how to respond, but his own paws migrated on their own and scraped the edges of the fox's claws.

"I don't know how, but I want to make it so that you never feel like that again," Red said in a firm, focused voice.

Marty pulled himself away and curled up upon himself a bit. Leaning against the back of his chair, he narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice even more. The fox strained to hear.

"Can we talk about something else? Please?" Marty murmured.

"Sure," Red replied, "so: are you part of a pack?"

Marty simply nodded.

"Cool," Red remarked, "it's a random-ish question, I know. But I... I've kind of always wanted to be in one. Still, I've sort of aimlessly drifted through different circles of friends over the years. A pack environment might make things worse. Or it might finally tie me down. Who knows, eh?"

"They can be very close-knit groups," Marty said, "and not only come to the rescue when mammals are in trouble but literally save members' lives."

"Yep." Red took another huge gulp of his drink. "So, is yours made up of a variety of different predators? Different backgrounds, jobs, sizes, and the rest?"

"Oh, hell," Marty began with a loud laugh, "it's totally like that and more. We even have a sheep."

"A sheep!" Red slapped his side.

"I know, right?" Marty rested his chin on a paw and grinned.

"He or she must've had a really tough time dealing with the fallout after Bellwether got busted, God," Red murmured.

"It's 'he'," Marty started to say, and his grin grew wider, "and it's a long but fascinating story that I'll tell you sometime."

"I probably shouldn't say this, but I will. My last boyfriend was a ram."

"Really?" Marty's eyes opened a bit wider.

"It was an off and on thing for several months. It's embarrassing to admit, but I think that his whole appeal to me boiled down to one thing— it was the wool that I was after. Poking and prodding his white stuff became something that I literally dreamed about. I didn't like him for him. I tried, though, as much as his shit personality got in the way. It's ironic too. Nothing about his butt, his face, his hooves, or anything about him except his wool seemed attractive to me, but I was the one that kept pushing to make the relationship into something committed and serious. The ram cared about nothing that wasn't physical."

"God, that sounds awful."

"In retrospect, it was," Red concluded with a long sigh, "but, at least, I got two sweaters out of him before we finally broke up."

"Victory, eh?" Marty couldn't help but compare and contrast with Charlie and her complicated relationship to the pack's only prey mammal.

"It forced me to be single again, which made me lonely and eventually got me in front of you at the library counter," Red said, "in front of somebody looking genuinely handsome."

That final word caused Marty to awkwardly wiggle about. Red silently watched. The stoat then sipped his drink and held a paw against his forehead.

"What?" Red asked. He stifled yet another laugh. "What is it about that sets you off, inside?"

"Handsome," Marty squeaked out.

"Yeah? You are."

"It's just..." The stoat trailed off as he felt this strong, almost glowing sensation ripple though him. "That."

"That?"

"What about me is handsome?" Marty asked, a pleading expression filled with doubt covering his face.

"Honestly? Everything," the fox eagerly replied, picking up his drink and shifting it around between his paws, "I can start from the top. Those ears, my God, seem like the most delectable things ever. You think what I did on that sidewalk was intimate? Hah, I could massage them for hours. Scratch and pet without restraint, and why not? I don't know if you'd ever let me, but I genuinely want to kiss them too. And given how I kiss, that'd probably end up with me slurping them outright like little ice cream cones."

Marty instinctively clutched both ears with his paws. He had little clue how to respond, but the glowing sensation flowing through his insides made him shiver. The mixture of sheer awkwardness with raw pleasure felt incredible— in, alas, a clearly not entirely good way.

"Those eyes too," Red went on, sipping the last of his iced tea, "with that nose— that whole face? Handsome as shit, dude! I just gaze into your pupils, and you seem so intense yet so vulnerable at the same time, you know? It's like coming upon this big beautiful machine in shiny bronze with gears, knobs, levers, and the rest everywhere only to find that it's just a little bit broken, and every instinct inside of you screams to fix it so that it can be utterly perfect."

"I'm broken?" Marty mouthed.

"No, that's not what I meant at all," Red responded, looking a bit horrified, "maybe it's more like: you're this bookshelf that's nearly full, and I've got this little paperback in my paws that will still fit. Feels beyond satisfying to take that thing and jam it in so that every last nook and cranny is filled, right? Have the ideal collection to show off, then?"

"This date had better go off without a hitch if you except any sort of 'jamming it in'," Marty remarked.

Red grinned. He plopped his empty glass back on the table and continued on. "Screw the metaphors, okay? The point is: you're handsome as a guy on guy terms. That's a fact. I can point to any individual thing from your ears to your fur to your paws, but the point remains."

"I... I just..." Marty shut his eyes and made a tiny groan. He had to level with the fox. The stoat slowly but surely swung his head down and placed it flat on the table— Marty staring blankly at the rose-filled vase in its center. "I'm not, though."

"Huh?"

"Why do you keep lying to me, Red?"

"It's not a lie. It's a fact. I'll even put it on my tombstone. It'll read: 'here lies Red, who thought his librarian was handsome'." The fox folded his arms.

Marty groaned a bit louder. "I... I'm objectively average or below-average in terms of looks, okay? I've heard it my whole life."

"That's a terrible misuse of the word 'objectively', and you're too smart to talk like that," the fox declared, reaching out and gently petting the top of the stoat's head.

"Smart."

"Huh?" The fox pulled his arm away for a few seconds.

"I'm not that smart either. Okay?"

"That's a load of shit. You ever taken an IQ test?" Red asked. The fox stretched himself over to the side in order to pop up the stoat's head a few inches. "You'd probably score in the so-called 'cognitive elite' faction or whatever the hell its called now. I seriously—"

"Red, I know that you really like me. Maybe, though it's early as shit, it's past the point where one can use the word 'love' for how you feel. But that doesn't change who I am."

"And who you are is handsome and smart. Period."

The stoat's head slipped out of the fox's light grip. Marty's face landed flat down— his eyes, mouth, and nose rubbing against the tablecloth. Red, for his part, simply froze in silence for several seconds.

"Marty," the fox finally began, "I... I take it that you almost never get these kinds of compliments."

"I almost never get compliments. At all. Period," Marty mumbled into the tablecloth.

"That sure as shit is going to change now that I'm in your life," Red declared, "and when you meet my friends, well, it's going to seem like it never was any other way."

"Here's another pair of ice teas!" Marcus popped up beside the table and slapped down two more drinks. He paused, though, when he heard the stoat let out a soft panting sound. "Sir? Are you okay?"

"Yes," Marty said, picking himself up and sitting down flatly.

"He is," Red added.

"Your food is already done! I'm positive that it'll be here in a matter of seconds!" Marcus declared before spinning around and speeding off.

"Red, seriously," Marty began, reaching for his drink, "that's enough about me, for now. Let's talk about you."

"Sure!"

"You mentioned before that you've lived in Pack Street for half a decade?" the stoat asked.

"That's correct."

"Where'd you live before then?" Marty sipped down a little more of his iced tea. "Like... where are you originally from?" 

"I'm a Zootopia native. Both my parents were as well. I grew up in a few different places around the middle of the metropolis— each of them being white-collar in that stereotypically generic sense, with big grey apartment buildings sitting next to little baseball fields and tinier playgrounds."

"Were you always, uh," Marty fumbled as he tried to come up with the right words, "different than other mammals? I mean, well, did you always know that you weren't straight?"

"I was always weird as hell, seriously," Red answered with a couple of chuckles, "but it never quite added up to the stereotypical picture of the young mammal who practically leaps out of the closet. What kind of a kit was I? I got obsessed with baseball. Had a Joe DiMeowgio poster on the wall and everything. Macho, right? But I also loved disco music and had this hardcore passion for glitter. I'd literally sprinkle it on everything— backpacks, shoes, televisions, walls, windows, and anything else that it'd stick to."

"Sounds messy."

"It dovetailed perfectly for how much I enjoyed wearing dresses. Oh, they felt like the greatest thing in the world in terms of comfort and flexibility. The fabric always seemed as if it was kissing my fur. I begged my parents to be able to wear a glitter-soaked silver piece to my Saturday games instead of my itchy, ugly uniform. They never let me. At the same time as that, I shared my teammates love for talking about girls. Especially kissing girls. I can't imagine how my mom, in particular, processed the sight of me, in a dress, sticking bright pink heart stickers on the refrigerator while I talked on the phone about cornering the vixen next door and making her lock lips with me."

"Mixed signals to say the least." Marty took a long gulp from his drink before rubbing his face with his paws. "I butted heads with my parents a lot myself while growing up. Different reasons, but... they always seemed kind of confused by me too. And that's putting it politely."

"My parents, well," Red began, and he narrowed his eyes before massaging his neck, "they were strict on a lot of things. Painfully strict. In terms of understanding gender identity and sexual orientation, well, they were a product of their time. While I could explore a bit when I was pretty young, my mom eventually put her paw down and forced me into this narrow box in terms of clothing, music, video games, and so on that didn't challenge her sense of traditional morality. My dad went along with it, and my teenage years had a lot of the 'this is a good, Bible-believing household that will not tolerate' speeches screamed in my direction."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"At the same time, though, they never laid a paw on me. I never got locked into any rooms. No belts ever came off. And all the times that I got shit from classmates for being a fox resulted in my parents flying in like supermammals before shrieking out 'if my son ever gets treated like this again, then you will rue the day that you were born' style defenses." Red smiled widely at the memory. "Hell, I never seriously lacked for anything either in terms of, say, health care or even the standard middle-class niceties. I had my own television. Sure, they'd get steaming if they caught me watching anything overly sexual, but horrific, gratuitous violence was always fine. Funny how that works."

A large bull in a snappy suit walked up to the table with two wide plates. He delicately set them down in front of Marty and Red before giving a kind of salute. The sitting mammals gave their thanks. The bull immediately marched off towards the far corner of the restaurant.

"Red," Marty began, the stoat clutching a big batch of sweet potato fries, "you don't have to go on about it if you don't want to."

"I really don't mind," the fox answered while neatly slicing his breaded fish into tiny squares, "since it's something that I've had to come to terms with from all sides. My parents were real mammals with real problems. Flawed. My dad? He possessed this quick temper that could shoot from zero to enraged in seconds, and he got into the booze more than a little too much as well. Yet he was one-hundred percent aware of those two things and had almost no sense of self-denial. They ate at him. He always sincerely apologized, always replaced anything that he broke, and always vowed to do something nice for us later, which he actually did. I think he viewed the anger thing and the drinking thing as diseases— they were parts of himself that he couldn't remove but had to carefully treat on a daily basis, like diabetes or something."

"Oh, God, this tastes so heavenly," Marty moaned, the stoat almost inhaling another clump of fries. He stopped, seeing the look of passionate reflection on the fox's eyes, and tapped a paw upon the table while resuming eye contact. "Seriously, though, that seems really rough. I can directly relate in a bunch of ways."

"My mom, though," Red continued, "it's like: me being born basically killed her marketing career— something that she'd spent her entire life investing herself in, even getting a master's degree in the subject. She apparently also suffered from a bunch of relatively minor yet painful medical problems that she mostly kept to herself. Religion sort of filled the gap in her life that otherwise seemed to be hurting, I guess? My dad needed faith for similar reasons. And it probably genuinely helped them— especially since their brand of it took the normally empty rhetoric about building places for the homeless, pushing to let in refugees, stocking soup kitchens, and so on seriously. I sure as shit could've done without the constant homophobia, though."

"Always felt pretty distant from anything spiritual, myself," Marty remarked. He sliced off a corner of his breaded fish and chomped it down. "The right book, though? Or the right film? The right album, even? I get really moved." He thought back as he strained to keep the big fork from slipping out of his paws. "I remember you asking me to rattle through my favorite releases of all time, and Marten Gaye's 'What's Going On' nearly topped the list. And that album's dripping with spirituality. It's even got a track explicitly called 'God Is Love'."

"Oh, hey, I'm sorry," Red said in between bites, "I didn't ask for utensils sized properly for small mammals. I can wave down Marcus right now."

"I've already halfway cleared my plate," Marty commented while shaking his head, "it's fine."

"Like you were saying, yeah," Red said, "spirituality is a complicated thing that I've kept on wrestling with as an adult. A lot of questions and a lot of wandering... but I guess the act of questioning is supposed to be a good thing in and of itself, right?"

"Why not?" Marty asked with a shrug.

"Let me end my ramblings," Red concluded, the fox taking in the last meaty square left on his plate, "with this: the long and short of it is that I only really came out of the closet when I was in my early twenties. Even heading off to college didn't break me out of the mental cage that I had fallen into, not at first, and it took a very special deer asking me out to make the difference."

"Seriously, Red," Marty began, "I'm sorry to hear all of that."

"Don't be. It's past. Past is past."

"My own background is, well," Marty cringed as he flashed back to several painful moments as a teenager, the stoat twitching even more as his mind went back further, "not very complicated. It's actually pretty plain. Simple. Boring... honestly."

"You've lived on Pack Street for a while?"

"A long time," Marty replied, and he started to really regret opening up that particular window of conversation, "and... I mean... my parents..." He rubbed little circles upon his neck, the stoat feeling conscious of the bruises from Saturday's near-choking once more. "Those lower-class mammals lived a lower-class existence in a lower-class place that only allowed them to dream lower-class dreams. Their neighbors usually never planned to start families— young mammals simply happened to get pregnant, and sometimes that meant sudden marriages. Sometimes it didn't. Those couples that did form had basic lives. Compressed lives. I wish that I could tell you that my parents were something special, but, looking back, they seem nothing more than another pair of predators from Pack Street."

"Sounds terrible."

"Pack Street isn't exactly the Ritz now, but it's a far cry from what the neighborhood was a couple decades go. Sure, you see rows of broken windows right now. A lot of buildings need to get torn down. Yet young mammals can step down the sidewalk without fear. Every other late night is a party with outdoor cookouts and live music, for crying out loud." Marty pounded the table, a tinge of anger swelling up inside of him. "It kills me when idiots call it a 'bad neighborhood'. They need to get shoved into a Tardis and taken back to see how everything used to be. They need to see mothers afraid to let their little ones outside at all while dealers with coats full of cocaine-filled baggies jump from rooftop to rooftop above alleys literally reeking of shit."

"Marty..."

The fox and stoat simply looked at each other in total silence. Several awkward seconds passed. Marty let out a loud cough.

"You don't have to follow my speech with your own speech," Red said, waving a paw in the air, "I understand."

"So, uh," Marty fumbled as he once again had to hunt for the right words, "you mentioned liking girls? But you're gay? Or are those different feelings gone?"

"Bisexual." The fox let out a idle laugh. "Ladies are beautiful. I'm never going to deny that. I'm never going to avoid finding them attractive. At the same time, though, with one single exception I've only dated guys. More than the fact that I've never done much physically with girls, besides, is that... like... I'm fine with just the word 'gay'. It's simple. It's easy."

"I see." Marty found himself embarrassingly letting out a sigh of relief. "It's just... uh... bisexual isn't as hard to understand."

"Understand," the fox repeated while scratching around his arms.

"Dating a guy is something that's a real stretch for me, in a lot of ways," Marty commented, his cheeks blushing as he struggled to put his feelings to words, "but that pales in comparison to having to understand not wanting to be with a girl. Getting my head around that is like... I don't know. It's as if I saw a mammal with a third arm growing straight out of his forehead."

"I hate to make things even more complicated," Red began, the fox sipping down the last of his drink, "just because I'm into ladies doesn't mean that I think I'll ever date one again. That's a major reason why I'm so comfortable with just, like, passing as simply 'gay'."

"Why?" Marty asked as he finished off his own glass.

"Oh, well, the true answer to that would take all night," Red admitted, a tinge of regret flashing across his face, "and would involve a lot of pure ranting about gender roles— so angrily and so wildly getting into social politics that I'd literally toss the table."

"I guess that it could be a hard question," Marty murmured, "but there's got to be a straight answer."

Red grinned from cheek to cheek, though the fox quickly returned to his previous, more neutral expression.

"Pardon the pun."

"The summary version?" Anxiety seemed to drip off of the fox's face as he nervously massaged his paws against his neck. "You and I both know: as a guy, gender roles are suffocating. They literally consume mammals' lives and rot their dreams from the inside. Guys want to cry. They want to listen to bubbly pop music. They want to wear pink. They want to clip their fur into intricate styles and blast it with exotic scents. They want to work as nurses. It all goes on and on. Yet guys who do such things wind up triggering an immediate and sometimes violent response from traditional society— they wind up as barbecued as a cricket that accidentally hopped atop an electric sense."

"That's a... very bleak and fatalistic way to put things."

"Is it, though? Really?" the fox asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't want to, like, invalidate the sort of things that you've experienced," Marty said, "being openly gay and all. I simply am saying that you're taking a shades of grey thing and calling it solid black."

"When the alternative literally is freedom, and letting mammals live how they need to live... that solid white... even a light grey can look pretty damn black by comparison. Any mistreatment to anybody anywhere is too much."

"Look, I see where you're coming from."

"Ladies, though? For them," Red continued, his arms stretching out as a seething tone came over his voice, "gender roles are like a mental sort of cancer. They literally drive countless individuals to suicide. Girls get told that they must set up a permanent psychological wall between themselves and any potential partner. They are dainty objects to get protected at all costs from the cruelties of the real world— any individual seeking to reach them must slowly crawl forth with sanitary gloves on and proceed with the utmost delicacy, any wrong move liable to crack those fragile creatures to pieces."

"Red..." The uncomfortable stoat rubbed his legs together.

"Partners have to leap over emotional barrier after emotional barrier because of the supposedly fragile nature of the female ego. Ladies aren't allowed to be their partner's best friend— sharing in his or her own passionate interests at an even level. They're not even allowed to enjoy physical intimacy for its own sake. It's all so excruciating that even just talking about it feels like death. Death."

"That's a... well," Marty started to say, and he felt genuinely taken aback by Red's vehemence, "extremely dark picture that you've painted."

"Am I really wrong, though? If you've got any female friends, neighbors, roommates, or whatever, get them a little inebriated and then ask their genuine opinion on somebody claiming: 'as a lady, Zootopian culture treats me fairly'."

Marty pictured doing that to Anneke, Avo, and Charlie, all in that order. He immediately visualized the three mammals rolling on the floor laughing hard enough that tears ran down their cheeks. The stoat still wanted to press the point, however.

"Still, we're talking about dating. Relationships. The fact that sexism is really Goddamn horrible, which I totally agree it is, doesn't seem to be some kind of inherent barrier to acting straight," Marty commented.

"Look..." Red appeared totally lost in thought.

"Not that you need to act straight, of course. It's your life."

"I won't pretend as if it makes perfect sense. Honestly, I'm flashing back to your question as to why I don't eat bug-meat. It's ultimately my life and my own messed-up personality." Red let out a loud sigh. "If I could put it in a nutshell: so, well, as long as traditional society is that screwed up about guys dating girls, then I'm not dating girls."

"It's not the 1950s anymore. You and I are out here openly dating as different species. We're both guys as well. There's no 'holy enforcers for the prevention of vice squad' or whatever that's coming to put us in jail because of what we're doing." Marty loathed keeping an argument going about social politics— especially on a romantic date, no less— but he felt like he had to do something to push Red out of the fox's sudden burst of melancholy. "Hell, you can go to Timber right now and find prey ladies who couldn't give any less of a shit about tradition and society— to the point that they're openly calling for male predators to simulate hunting them and pretending to eat them alive."

"I understand what you're saying," Red remarked, "but I... I simply go back to the countless LGBT support group meetings that I've been in. Especially the ones with transgender mammals. It's tough hearing individual after individual talk about suicide. Stories about verbal attacks and outright physical assaults get traded, and I've got my fair share in terms of those two things, though I'd rather not be specific about them right now."

"You don't have to go into details about anything," Marty began, "and I don't want you to get the notion that I don't care what you think. I'm only trying, and failing, to cheer you back up." The stoat anxiously tapped the side of his empty glass.

"It always boils down to those Goddamn categories and those Goddamn lines, though," Red lamented.

"Then, to hell with the categories and lines," Marty said, the stoat getting somewhat animated, "ask out some predator girl with fur dyed bright pink and a sweater reading 'smash capitalism' or something. She'll feel literally the exact same way."

"Charlotte." The fox's voice had lowered to a whisper.

"Huh?" Marty leaned across the table.

"It's an incredibly personal thing as much as it's a social politics thing, honestly," Red said, the fox appearing more in pain than the stoat had ever seen before, "because I've genuinely considered asking out several ladies, in the past few years especially. I'll admit it. I'm scarred by... like... well, my one and only relationship with a member of the opposite sex didn't exactly help decontaminate my mind from all of this socially traditional shit."

"Ah, I see."

"Literally the worst experience in my life, and it lasted half a year," Red muttered, holding up his empty glass, "to the point where, if we're using the contamination analogy, it served as my own Chernobyl."

"You don't have to talk about it." Marty anxiously scratched his neck and glanced down at the floor. "I'm... Red, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pressed you. It's your life. You shouldn't have to defend your Goddamn preferences to anybody."

"No, seriously," Red began, and he sucked in a deep breath, "you shared your heart. I shared mine."

"Red..."

"The long and short of it about Charlotte is," Red remarked, the fox chewing on the leftover ice cubes to let some of his emotion out, "I loved her, and she loved me back. Yet neither of us really understood what love meant. We were just too damn young. And everything came to a close with me standing in a doorway beside a living room with a vixen crying waterfall tears as her stubborn bastard of a father literally foamed at the mouth— the old fox screaming about her eternal damnation for wearing pants."

"Pants," Marty repeated.

"Pants. One of the many supposed signs that she was secretly a lesbian and I only served as her cover."

"What did you do?" the stoat asked, feeling a surge of morbid curiosity.

"I puked." Red shut his eyes and crunched the last of the ice cubes. "Chunky brown stuff all along the back of her shirt." He stood up straight in his chair. "I then ran out of the house, got into my little hatchback, started it up, drove out of the cul-de-sac, and never saw Charlotte again."

"Last straw, huh?"

"I wasn't a good boyfriend. It's not just that I never stood up for her. I never stood up for myself either, but that's not the point. The core thing is this: we were always paralyzed. We simply went through the motions during every date. We acted out stereotypical traits that we'd gotten told about in the media and elsewhere when we were in public. In private, though, we mostly experienced a lot of staring coupled with a lot of silence. Some crying."

"Red..." The fearful stoat held out both arms across the table.

"Even when we were completely alone at my parents' house, I almost never had the courage to even ask to make any physical moves. All that religious programming screamed at us both. 'She's a dainty treasure'! 'Don't push anything'! 'Don't defile yourself'! 'Sin'! We kissed sometimes. We fondled each other sometimes. It always ended these feelings of inky blackness. Shit," Red went on, his claws coming out as he scraped up and down his glass, "we could never square the circle. We'd read stuff about scripture and find half of it viewing ladies literally as property— the same as a jacket or a toaster oven or whatever. Some set them up as inferior complements— alternate models of the male type with more baggage. The rest put them on the top of a mountain that could essentially never get climbed."

"You don't have to say any more, Red," Marty declared, trying to put on as supportive of a tone of voice as possible.

"Her parents made mine look like atheists," Red seethed, still going on, "since they fit basically every stereotype. Religious iconography filled their house. Worship music always floated through the air. Her father wore tight sweaters and big frowns. He also insisted on being called 'sir' and thought it perfectly fine to hit both her and his wife as long as it didn't actually leave a mark. I could go on, but I mean it: every stereotype. I could've said something. I could've done something. I didn't. He had God on his side. God. All I had was myself—"

A soft crinkling noise sounded off. Both Marty and Red rapidly blinked. The fox glanced downward, and he took in how his frantically scraping claws had broken his glass in two. A tiny trail of blood oozed out from the corner of Red's paw.

"Please, let me get that," Marty insisted. The stoat scurried across the table and clutched a napkin. The fox slowly placing the glass back down on the table, Marty wrapped the napkin tightly around Red's paw. The stoat then opened up his mouth and rested his lips upon the little cut.

"Thanks. Seriously."

Marty slowly nodded. The two of them gazed at each other in silence for a solid minute. When the stoat eventually slipped the tip of Red's paw out of his mouth, Marcus popped on by the table.

"Oh," the goat began, "I'm sorry that we didn't get your empty plates before. And I'll be sure to pick up some extra drinks, but I'm curious if—" Marcus finally noticed the broken glass. "Wow! I totally apologize about that!"

"Don't, please," Red sheepishly remarked, "it's simply a matter of me not knowing my own strength."

"You can keep that napkin, sir, and I will get you both a fresh set of glasses immediately! Stronger ones, hopefully!"

"Actually," Marty interjected, "I think we're ready for the check."

"No problem!" Marcus scurried away.

"Marty," Red began, the fox sulking a bit, "I probably ruined this date. Didn't I?"

"Why do you say that?" Marty asked, the stoat trying once again to put on an affectionate, caring tone.

"You try to be nice, but I rant away. And then I get so mad for no good reason that I literally break something," Red muttered.

"Red, come on, I'm still here. I'm not recoiling in terror at the big bad fox. I haven't dashed out the restaurant with my tail between my legs. Relax."

The fox simply nodded.

"What do you want to do when the check comes?" Marty asked.

"We could see a movie? Hang out at the park? I wouldn't mind taking you shopping either."

"I notice that you didn't include 'head on back to my apartment together' in that little list."

"Well," the fox blushed profusely as he scratched all along his neck, "even if I assume that this date is genuinely going well so far—"

"And that's true." Marty chuckled at the fox's embarrassment as the stoat rested his head upon both paws.

"Putting up that proposition feels as though I'm missing a step."

"Also true."

"Shopping it is, then?"

Marty shrugged. "That's actually somewhat vague, Red. We talking clothing depot? Bookstore? Electronics place?"

"We're both guys, and we're apparently in a good mood. So, I'll be blunt: which one is most likely to cause the 'come back to my apartment' question to get a nice answer?"

"Bookstore it is!"

"What a non-surprise," Red remarked, the fox comically rolling his eyes.

"Thank you both very much!" Marcus appeared with a small black folder between his hooves. The fox immediately picked it up and reached for his pockets. The goat smiled, bowed his head a bit, and scurried away once again.

"How much was my order?" Marty asked.

"I'm paying for it all. I insist." The fox lifted a few bills from his wallet.

The stoat hopped upwards and tugged down the fox's arm. "Hold on," Marty declared.

"Huh?"

"No, I insist," Marty began, the stoat narrowing his eyes and swishing a paw in the air, "I'm totally broke right now. I admit it. When I get paid, however, I'm going to give you every last buck back for the cost of my order."

"Marty, it's really not—"

"I don't know shit about gay relationships," the stoat interjected, "but I know a lot about psychological distance and feeling separated. I can tell that I'm the 'girl' here."

The fox threw his head back and laughed. "If you say so, Marty."

"I sure as shit aren't going to sit on the top of any mountain, setting myself up as a dainty object that you've got to jump over obstacle after obstacle to obtain," Marty declared. He braced his legs apart and pointed at the center of his chest. "I'm the 'girl', but I'm the best damn 'girl' that you could possibly have. There's not a single gender role that I won't break."

"Thanks, I suppose."

The fox's cheerful smile had returned. That little victory— melting the melancholy out of Red's senses— caused Marty to feel a surge of raw, positive emotion all throughout his body. It seemed intoxicating.

"God," the stoat whispered to himself, "I think I'm actually falling for this guy."

"Huh?"

"Nothing!" Marty clasped his paws together. "Let's head out."

Red marked down a little note on the small black folder and slid the money into place. It didn't take long for the two mammals to venture out of the restaurant and back to Red's car. After they both buckled into place, however, the fox hesitated with the key in the ignition.

"What is it?" Marty asked, his head rubbing against his seat belt.

"It's just, well," the fox shook his head before letting out a pair of chuckles, "I get the feeling that— 'best damn girl' or no— I'm going to end up buying you a glossy, expensive tome that you won't offer to pay me back for."

"That's totally different." Marty smacked his arms against his sides. "First, it'll be for the library. Not me. Second, our professional, literary relationship is totally different than our dating one. There, I'm the handsome, smart librarian and you're the patron that comes in— cap in paw— begging for my advice and approval. Don't be mad. You agreed to the rules when you signed up for that little plastic card."

Red snickered as he turned the key. The vehicle sputtered to life. In just a matter of seconds, the two mammals had made their way onto a major road and started their trip to central Zootopia.


	3. Chapter 3

**[Chapter Three]**

**A few minutes later...**

"I take it that there's a good reason why we're heading all the way downtown, instead of going to one of a number of closer places," Marty remarked, the stoat idly drawing an invisible figure eight on the car window.

"Yep," Red answered, pulling the two mammals up to a huge intersection that featured shimmering marble fountains on each side, "my cousin works at Sausalito— a bookstore over in the corner of this one mall. It's been a while since I've seen her, though, so I'd like to try and surprise her."

"Why not?" Marty shrugged.

The car made its way up a ramp and smoothly turned a long corner. Although both fox and stoat remained quiet, they each had on broad, sincere smiles. One changing of lanes and an abrupt right turn later, they had made it to an immense parking lot coated with vehicles.

"Red," Marty began, a bit of anxiety flashing across his face once more, "I seriously don't want to complain. I kind of have to, though, since while my legs aren't in pain anymore... well, their batteries still aren't fully charged, so to speak."

"Oh, good luck!" Red remarked, spotting a gigantic SUV about to pull out. In a matter of seconds, he had parked and slipped the key out of the ignition.

"Okay, so we're only a hop and a skip to that series of doors," Marty said, the stoat still nervously scratching his cheeks, "but I aren't in the mood for either hopping or skipping."

Red popped upon Marty's door. He unbuckled the stoat. He then placed one arm behind his back and poised another so that his paw rested right in front of Marty's chest.

"I get that you'd rather not be carried when there's legions of strangers watching. So, what about holding on tight and letting me... well, slowly pull you, essentially?"

Marty didn't say anything. He simply gripped the fox's offered paw with one of his own. Red promptly shut the car door, locked the vehicle, and sauntered his way across the parking lot with the stoat in tow.

"Not so fast," Marty murmured, feeling unhappy tingles pop up within his thighs.

"No worries!" Red replied. The fox lowered his pace a bit.

"And please tell me that we don't have to make our way all through the J.C. Peccary's to get to the bookstore."

Red thrust open a tall, shiny door. A wide array of thin coats in bright colors coupled with sporty jackets featuring all variety of pockets greeted the fox and stoat— every last bit of clothing seemingly being on sale. Smooth jazz music filtered down from omnipresent speakers on the ceiling. Predators and prey mammals alike scurried around as they hunted for items in the right size.

"It'll literally take us thirty seconds, if not less," Red commented, pointing off into a path leading to the far right.

The fox didn't lie. The two mammals stepped beside a batch of mannequins and wiggled around a display case of expensive watches. Heading out of a small side door, they both found themselves standing before a cozy-looking bookstore. A smattering of various hardcover and paperback items rotated atop circular metal shelves right behind its big windows. Next to its double-doors, a tigress in a black blouse read from a book coated in shiny spaceships to her little cub.

"It's always nice to see one of these places without a 'going out of business' sign," Marty remarked, looking up at his fox companion, "am I right?"

"I should admit, though, that Sausalito has reached the point where it's now half coffeeshop, quarter deli, and quarter bookstore, basically," Red replied.

"Whatever it takes."

The two mammals stepped inside. They each took a moment to observe the other mammals that surrounded them. The place gave off essentially the same diverse vibe as Lulu's— though, naturally enough, prey individuals clearly outnumbered predators given the bookstore's location.

Skinny deer that gave off a hipster aura with their ascots and matching berets browsed up and down shelves beside a middle-class looking family of short and stout coyotes in drab-colored jackets. One section of the place featured walls coated in shiny-looking comic books. Inside, a puffy-appearing ewe in a Sheep Trick t-shirt heatedly argued with a big badger in a silver dress as both angrily pointed all over— the two possibly quarreling over which character could beat which in some silly crossover event.

Red turned to the bookstore's central display. Copy after copy of a hardcover featuring bold letters embossed in bright red upon a plain white background laid down on an octagon-shaped table of hard wood. The fox's face lit up.

"You read this one yet, Marty?"

"Huh?" The stoat jumped onto a nearby counter to see. "Looks like they're really pushing that."

"I got 'It Didn't Start With Bellwether: Crooks in Zootopia's Capitol' as a birthday gift from my brother several days ago," the fox declared, "and I devoured it in one sitting."

"I recall seeing mixed reviews online, though," Marty commented.

"Probably loses points for the sensationalist cover and title, I guess, but I still found it highly interesting," Red remarked, picking up a copy, "even if, in fairness, I need to admit that the author didn't do much in the way of original research. He simply went through a lot of public court records, going back about seventy-five years or so. Still, taking all that dry material and distilling it down into a thematic history requires a lot of intelligence and even more patience."

"Nah." The stoat shot out a wiggling paw and turned his head. "It's too trendy."

"Well, Marty, you and I are going to find something that you actually feel worthy of adding to the library's collection— even if it takes the whole rest of the day."

"The quest begins, eh?" The stoat slithered down onto the floor and stepped into a far corner of the bookstore. "Oh, here's the arts and music section?"

"What about this? 'Fleetwood Yak: A History'?" The fox held up a particularly tall and wide book with a glossy cover. "It seems pretty comprehensive." He fumbled through several pages. "Although, well, the central appeal of it might happen to be the sheer number of pictures included rather than anything in the prose."

"You read that before?"

The fox shook his head.

"It's," Marty began, but he stopped as he got a better look at the book's cover, "oh... my God. Look at that photo of the band that they picked for the very front of it."

Red flipped the item around. He let out a hearty laugh. "Yes, every single one of them could not possibly look more high." He then placed the book back on the shelf. "It was the 1970s, though. Every record company event probably had a bowl full of yellow pills alongside the chips and dip."

"I thought that Fleetwood Yak were more of the 'not your grocery store's brand of mushrooms' type," Marty remarked.

"As the internet likes to say: why not both?" The fox grinned as he put the hardcover item back into place.

The two mammals then silently made their way to another part of the bookstore. Marty stepped forward and scanned all across a pair of novel-coated shelves. He turned his nose up and immediately spun around.

"More in the mood for non-fiction, eh?" Red asked.

"I'm feeling more than picky this afternoon," the stoat answered, letting out a sigh of frustration, "but I'm also without the energy to find the one young adult fantasy that's actually got some merit amidst all the piles of word vomit."

"To the 'natural sciences' area it is! And, hey, what about this? 'The Insect Next Door: A Journey Into a Little World'?" Red held up an item with a cover that featured a jar full of fireflies balanced atop a old fence-post. "I've read this one, and it's really nice!"

"It looks at, say, the evolution of various bugs and how their biology works?" Marty inquired, reaching out.

The fox nodded as he handed the book over. "It's a lot of things. Much of it focuses on the history of mammalkind and various individuals' relationship to certain insects. Did you know that, say, the first modern mayor of Zootopia owned two lucky pet crickets named 'moon' and 'sun'?" Red cocked his head to the side, smiling widely as he went on. "And that he often threatened his staff to appoint one of them to a vacant cabinet position when his associates couldn't agree on who to bring in?"

"Well," Marty stared to say, the stoat quickly flipping through the book's pages, "I'm going to have to say... pass." He knocked it shut and pushed it over to the fox's legs. "Sorry." Marty headed on to yet another section of the bookstore.

"Yeah, in terms of formatting... it goes all over the place. A good read, but slipshod... he might as well have called it 'A Collection of Stuff About Bugs I Find Cool'," Red muttered. He sheepishly scratched around his shoulders. "I probably enjoyed the thing mostly because it's from a predator that views insects the way that I do— he talks about even the idea of bug-meat making him sick. Oh, well."

"God, speaking of things making one feel ill," the stoat remarked, shoving his arms above his head, "welcome to the 'politics' section."

The fox sped across a corner and came upon a bookshelf crammed with dozens of copies of the same paperback. Marty stared straight upward in raw disgust. The fox hesitated for a moment, but he then plucked one of the books— a copy that had gotten turned aside and poised atop a small hunk of plastic, though nothing made it particularly special otherwise— and wiggled it in front of his face.

"I can't pretend like I haven't seen a piece like 'Secular Socialism: Protecting Your Children' before," the fox murmured.

"Red, you don't have to read all of the titles out loud. I have eyes, you know," Marty remarked in a huff.

"Sorry."

"It just kills me," the stoat began, stepping about in a little circle, "that some pea-brained pundit on ZNN can publish a nonsensical screed and have it become a huge bestseller. Copy after copy gets littered all over the place, and a few even make it to the library. Meanwhile, classics of Zootopian civilization only a few steps away sit literally collecting dust."

"The bison looks like he's trying hard not to take a dump," Red muttered, running a paw along the book's cover. The enormous prey mammal that authored the work stood with arms braced against an aged-looking brown desk. The bison's blank eyes and cold, empty stare complimented his old-fashioned thatched grey suit.

"Put it back, Red."

"Even in my socially traditional days, growing up, I never could stand these," the fox said as he calmly placed the paperback in position on the bookshelf, "you attempt to read one? You've read them all. All this bile about how letting a Mooslim lead a neighborhood council's opening prayer, letting a cancer patient eat a marijuana edible, letting a pair of bucks that fell in love get married, and whatever else destroys Zootopian culture... somehow."

"Forget about it."

"Something that kind of kills me in a different way, though," Red began as the two mammals started walking, "is that he probably has at least a little bit of a point about the whole socialism thing."

Marty raised both eyebrows. "Really?" He came to a stop beside a big door leading to a set of bathrooms. Scratching his chin, he took in a little breath. "That's an interesting comment that I wouldn't have expected in a million years from you." 

"Well, come on," Red started to say, the fox stopping as well and tapping a paw all along the doorframe, "it's not that controversial to think that not-so-high taxes and not-so-strict regulations that let the average mammal start a little company and make a little money winds up being good for everyone. Yes, even if it's a lot of businesses and a lot of money... nothing wrong with that. Just don't become a gigantic douche."

"Take a look at all of those newspapers and magazines set up across from us, though," Marty responded, "especially that top story from the top paper."

"A major health insurance company spikes the cost of a vitally needed drug by one hundred and fifty percent, sparking widespread outcry?" Red leaned his head back and let out a little moan. "Well..."

"Well?" Marty massaged his cheeks with both paws.

"First, it's government's fault for setting up monopolies on certain medications with all these intellectual property laws. Not the market's fault. Second, it's government's fault for restricting the right of free movement by banning mammals from crossing borders with needed drugs. Not the market's fault." The fox gestured out with sweeping arm movements, Red clearly looking more than a bit frustrated. "Finally, there's that whole 'don't become a gigantic douche' rule that I mentioned a second ago."

"I see."

"Do you disagree?" Red asked.

"It's your right to your opinion, and there's nothing inherently stupid or wrong about it either," Marty began. He shut his eyes and made a big shrug. "I simply find it pretty damn interesting that the exact same guy who spends his weekdays in LGBT meetings hugging transgender mammals also spends his weekends in hipster joints defending capitalism."

"Shit, Marty, I mean... mammals don't fit into boxes. That's the long and short of it."

"It's actually comforting and even kind of attractive, I mean, that you're thinking for yourself and aren't some limp-wristed stereotype," Marty mouthed, though he immediately regretted every word.

Red let out a deep, hearty laugh. "It's one hell of a back-pawed compliment. But thanks."

The stoat blushed. Marty then stepped a bit away and idly wiggled his paws all across his chest and belly. The fox slowly followed behind him.

"Forget that I said anything for the past minute or whatever," the stoat murmured.

"Sure."

"No more politics. My God, we've talked way too much about it for a 'date' already. We keep going and it'll feel like icing a cake with shit."

"Nice analogy," Red commented, the fox clasping his paws together. 

"We probably should've headed to the philosophy section immediately," Marty remarked, the stoat crawling up a table leg and glancing all around. He'd made it to the furthermost back end of the bookstore. "We've got anthropology and other great stuff here as well, excellent." 

"Whatever you say, Marty."

"Time to finally find something for the library," the stoat declared.

Red stood a little bit behind and watched while Marty slithered from shelf to shelf. The stoat scanned titles at a rapid speed, apparently finding them objectionable enough to dismiss book after book. The occasional item appeared worthy enough to get pulled out and sampled. At the same time, however, a full five minutes passed with nothing to show for it but a stack of various hardcover rejects sitting in the middle of the floor.

"I swear that I can help," Red murmured, the fox starting to feel somewhat bored.

"I know you can." Marty looked up from his place midway in a tome covering stoicism in ancient thought. "I'm doing this myself because I think that there's a good chance that I'll screw it up. This way, I've got nobody else to blame."

"Marty..."

The stoat didn't respond. He froze, however, when the fox leaned over— Red clutching both of Marty's paws with his own. Several seconds of silence passed.

"Maybe it's time that we each got a coffee and a cookie, okay?" Red asked.

The stoat raised his arms and slowly nodded. "Yeah, probably."

"I get it. Books are your life. They're your passion. Still, you're not on the clock here. This whole afternoon is supposed to be focused on me giving you a good time."

"I know," Marty began, "I just—" He immediately stopped. Something struck the stoat out of the corner of his eye. Before the fox even understood what had happened, Marty slipped away and virtually flew through the air over to the top left corner of a tall bookshelf.

"Spot something unusual, eh?" Red asked.

Marty returned to the fox's side while carrying a massive hardcover item that appeared as if it had gotten bathed in a chrome-like silver. The stoat popped up the book on the edge of its spine and flipped across a bunch of its pages. The satisfying noise of paper tapping against paper caused the stoat to shift about in place, Marty essentially swooning.

"Can I see?"

Marty clutched the hardcover item against his chest and gave it a tender hug. However, he duly nodded at the fox's question and pushed the tome over to Red's direction. The bigger mammal hesitated for a few seconds before picking it up. The bold text on the cover— 'Many Claws, One Paw: The History of Packs And Other Predator Groupings' getting printed in solid black— reminded Red of the sociology classes that he'd taken several years ago at Zootopia State.

"I take it that this has both a personal and professional appeal," the fox remarked.

"You're Goddamn right it does," the stoat answered, "I've needed to have this ever since I read all of the academic commentaries on its stereotype-busting findings. It's not just that packs have featured a more diverse mix of predator species than researchers in the field have wanted to admit. It's also not just that taking in wayward prey individuals has happened for a lot longer and to a lot wider extent than previously claimed."

"Interesting." The fox flipped through the book's introduction.

"It's that," the stoat went on, Marty looking rather animated as he migrated his paws all around his body, "the whole fundamental approach of looking into packs has been flawed from the beginning. Prey academics have flooded the field with their prejudices for decades upon decades. It's only recently that researchers have honestly asked the questions of 'Why do packs exist?' and 'Why do predators take in other species, even prey mammals, essentially as surrogate family?', and the answers are beyond fascinating. This isn't simply a scientific work." Marty pounded the corner of the tome. "It's a manifesto: a celebration of why packs don't just happen to exist but why they've needed to exist. And why they still do."

"I'm glad that you've already fallen head over paws for it," Red remarked with a cheerful smile.

"It's on sale too, or put into some kind of a category like that," added Marty. He followed the fox as Red began walking to the bookstore's eatery section. "I'd expect an academic piece to usually be in the twenty to thirty dollar range, but this says $17.99 on the back. Can you believe that?"

"I guess that I have to."

The two mammals came upon a series of glass cases that displayed item after item of delicious-looking snacks. Chocolate brownies coated in walnuts sat alongside thick slices of cheesecake as well as little cups filled with baby carrots. Behind the many cases, a gazelle and pair of rams all scrambled about to operate the different machines that generated the eatery's many drinks.

"A certain sheep needs this," Marty commented, tapping an edge of the silver-colored book, "in more ways than one. He could read it. He could have it read to him. He could sit back and actually listen, for once, as he hears its arguments."

"Good luck." The fox stepped into line behind a group of three rabbits in similar-looking crimson dresses. Each one of them clutched a thick magazine— despite the different brands, every one of them discussed the same happenings with the same Zootopian celebrities.

"Or, well, I could whack the sheep upside the head with it." Marty chuckled at the thought. "Regardless of how things go down, he needs the education."

"Hey," Red began, coming to the counter and locking eyes with the uniform-wearing gazelle, "can I have two of the 'Sausalito Special'?"

"Coming up, sir!"

"Sure," the fox remarked. He reached for his wallet and pulled out a pair of bills.

The sight made the stoat cringe a little. He vowed to himself to pay the fox back for whatever drink had gotten ordered. Marty then spotted an open pair of chairs beside one of the windows in the eatery's dining area. He gestured out in that direction while also nudging Red's side.

The fox looked down and simply nodded. Marty scurried away and jumped up into one of the seats. The hard black plastic didn't exactly offer any comfort. Still, the stoat had gotten immersed in a positive mood. He idly bobbed his head from side to side and ran his legs up and down one of the adjacent table's legs.

"Here we are!"

"Damn, that was fast," Marty commented. He watched as Red plopped down two tall brown cups. The stoat leaned upwards and sniffed. The scents felt more than soothing. "So, well, what is the 'Sausalito Special'?"

The fox took a long sip before answering. Letting out a happy sigh, he brushed a paw upon the nearby window and glanced over at his stoat companion. "It's regular coffee. But that's just to start with. They add tons of cream. They pour in plenty of caramel. Vanilla gets dripped all over as well. The mix gets both shaken and stirred. The final product is a calorie-coated bomb in terms of a mammal's health, yeah, but it sure tastes perfect."

Marty duly drank down about a third of his cup. He needed the boost. Licking his lips, he turned a bit away from his fox companion and gazed out the window. The sight didn't exactly appear that special— a stretch of vehicle-filled road lead to a big bank that had stereotypical columns of white marble everywhere— but it relaxed the stoat all the same.

Neither mammal said anything for a while. They simply enjoyed each other's company. Finally, coming to the last little bit of his cup, Red stretched his arms out across the table and wiggled them in Marty's direction.

"What is it?" the stoat asked.

"So," Red began, "is there anything else in particular that you want to talk about?"

"I," the stoat started to say, but it took half a minute for him to finish his response, "I genuinely don't know."

"To be a little more precise, I guess, is there anything that you want to ask me about me?" Red inquired.

"One thing pops up in my mind, but it's... well, it's an insanely personal and even invasive kind of question."

"Hey, we agreed before: no barriers."

"Okay," Marty began, and he cleared his throat, "so, Red, how... many... guys have you... well, uh, sowed the seeds of love inside of? In your life?" The stoat's eyes opened up wide as he managed to let the last few words out.

"That's a nice way of putting it! Poetic, even!" Red remarked, chuckling for a few seconds. He raised up his arms a few inches and titled his paws towards the ceiling. "As many as I have digits, Marty."

"But a total of ten is... well..." The stoat awkwardly scratched all around his neck. "Is that high for a guy that's LGBT? Is it low?"

"Maybe the first? Maybe the second? Maybe neither?" The fox grinned as he rested his head upon both arms. "Look, Marty, it all depends on the individual. Same as with straight dudes."

"I guess it's that, uh, I read about gay guys who do things with each other basically every night, or every other night, and I," Marty murmured, the stoat leaving the thought incomplete as waves of conflicting emotions splashed inside of him.

"Again, it's all on the individual. Casual hook-up culture is a thing that kind of exists all over the place if you want to find it. If that's not your style, though, then it's easy to ignore as well." Red tapped both paws upon his chin. "I've got a lot of gym buddies who care a lot about me and I them... my besties really do feel like a week without sex is a week wasted. I'm simply not like that. Still, I respect them. They respect me."

"You look, and I'm not just saying this since you've been so nice to me," Marty commented, "great. Seriously."

"Thanks."

"I mean it in like," Marty went on, the stoat seeming ever more anxious by the second, "a kind of prescriptive way."

"Oh?"

"You could go online and find an attractive buck to spend lewd times with in a split-second. An attractive ram. An attractive... whatever," Marty muttered, "so... why me?"

"Why not you?"

That immediate response from the fox— the words dripping with affectionate sincerity— kicked the stoat's inner demons back. Marty rapidly blinked. He stood up straight in his seat.

"If you want me to kind of crack open my skull and spill out my brains for us to mutually examine, then that's fine," Red said, the fox sipping down the last of his coffee, "we already pretty much did that at Lulu's, right? Anyways, the fact just is that I'm wired such that sex without love feels worse than meaningless. It's actively hurting. Yeah, the 'promiscuous gay dude' stereotype exists. It's just another one of those shitty social boxes. I've been to enough LGBT support meetings to see directly how many other dudes are the same as me. Hell, the fact that marriage equality has been such a big fight— doesn't that, by itself, demonstrate how many mammals have my sort of mindset?"

"You're not wrong," Marty commented, "I... I guess what's still hard for me is understanding why you're single."

"As of this moment, at least, I'm not single. I've got you."

Marty instinctively blushed. At the same time, forever, all kinds of questions still haunted the back of his mind. "Think back to early this morning. You were single."

"True," Red said, idly scratching the top of his head, "but I'd only been in that lonely state for a short while. Honestly, I think the core problem is that you seem to have picked up the idea that I'm unlucky. Or something like that? It honestly makes me want to keel over and make everybody else here stare at me as I laugh uncontrollably. So what if I struggled a lot while growing up? I'm lucky, Marty. I'm insanely lucky. I'm the luckiest mammal that I know."

"In terms of relationships—"

"I'm twenty-nine years old," Red interjected, the fox needing to go on, "and for almost every single week of my life since I came out of the closet I've had a boyfriend. I've been in loving relationships with good mammals having good sex after good dates, and it's been beyond wonderful. Literally the only problem— besides the ram that I mentioned earlier and his, well, issues— in every situation has been the various ends. That's it."

"The various ends," Marty repeated.

"It hurt like death all ten times. I never, ever wanted any of the relationships to end. They always died despite my strongest efforts otherwise, though," Red said. The fox reached out and crumpled his empty cup. "I could tell each story, but I don't want to relieve that— plus, well, I don't think that you want to hear that either."

"Nope." The stoat finished the last of his coffee as well.

"Let's just say that my first real, serious relationship ended with me watching that cute deer getting shoved into the back of a police car after a civil rights protest ended pretty badly. All contact ceased after that. I still wonder about him occasionally. If it wasn't for that quirk of fate, honestly, I'd still be with him."

"That really sucks."

"Don't forget, Marty, that I'm very lucky. Like I said," the fox declared, "I've constantly managed to bounce back." He wistfully glanced out the window. "Zootopia is crammed full of mammals— predators and prey individuals alike— that live lonely existences for months and even years. Spending all this time counting down the days without somebody else to be with? It's insane how the world is, am I right?"

"True." Marty uncomfortably shifted about in his chair.

"What about you?"

"Me?"

Red nodded. "Speaking of the seeds of love, how's your own gardening been?" The fox folded his arms and chuckled.

"I'm a hypocrite of the worst kind," Marty answered, the stoat beginning to sweat, "but I'm going to beg you to let me avoid answering that question."

"No begging needed," the fox remarked, "I'm just curious."

"I'll simply say that I've been single for a while, and I'll leave it at that."

"Several months or the like? Dude, I'm sorry." The fox leaned forwards a bit.

"For a while," the stoat repeated.

"Getting into multiple years, even?"

"A while." Marty's whole body shivered as streaks of sweat slid down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't press." The fox slid out of his chair and swished his tail upon one of the table's legs.

"No, I'm sorry," Marty remarked, the stoat looking away and pressing his paws upon the window, "I'm the one flashing a magnifying glass upon your personal life while being unable to take having the same thing held above myself."

"You want to check out?" Red asked. picked up the stoat's big book.

"Sure," Marty responded, "but where's the book?"

"Oh, damn, I left it at the counter," the fox muttered, "let me grab it while I also toss these empty cups."

Marty followed a few steps behind Red while the fox scurried about. Although a number of different mammals still wandered about the place's every nook and cranny, the little area beside the bookstore's front register didn't have a soul. Marty and Red marched up and gave a friendly wave to the cashier. The jaguar quit doing her nails and reached over for the scanning device.

"Hey, I don't mean to bug you, but is Janet around?" Red asked.

"Oh, snap, it's kind of weird," the jaguar remarked, her immense loop earrings jiggling as she titled her head from side to side, "but yesterday was the very last time that she worked a weekend shift. She's only doing Monday to Friday shifts now. At the same time, like, I totally spotted her wandering the shelves earlier today. Maybe she forgot something? I think that you just missed her, though."

"Damn," the fox muttered. He then shrugged. "It's fine. Anyways, we're ready to check out." The stoat plopped the big silver book down upon the counter.

"Is this it?" she asked. 

"Indeed," Marty replied. The fox simply nodded as he pulled out his wallet.

"Have a great day, sirs!"

It only took a few seconds for the jaguar to scan the book, slide it into a bag, take the fox's money, give the fox back his change, seize the receipt, and then give both the bag as well as the receipt over to the stoat. Marty and Red both felt taken aback at the speed. They made yet another friendly wave and headed out of the bookstore.

"Back to your car, then," Marty muttered, the stoat holding paws with the fox yet again. The two mammals made their way into the J.C. Peccary's as a waft of anxiety brushed upon both their senses.

"Unless you want to run some quick errand or something, I guess so." The fox smiled as he kept on walking.

"And, well," Marty began. The stoat sucked in his deepest breath of that entire day. Butterflies filled his stomach as his limbs shook. "It's off to your apartment next."

The fox froze. The stoat remained just as still. Having popped out of the clothing store's big entrance into the parking lot, various cars and trucks chugged along past them for several awkward seconds.

"You mean it?" Red asked.

"I do," Marty declared.

Neither mammal said another word for a while. They duly went back to Red's vehicle, got inside, buckled themselves in, started the car, and began to drive out in sheer silence. Finally, the two mammals turning out into a side road, the fox leaned back in his seat and cleared his throat.

"Seriously," Red started to say, "all implications aside, we could do pretty much anything. Watch TV. Snack on the couch. Whatever. If you're still around when it's late, I wouldn't mind at all us sleeping on the same bed."

"Red." The stoat's limbs shook once more. The surging sensations inside of him genuinely make him feel halfway like throwing up. At the same time, however, Marty managed to turn a bit and lock eyes with the fox. "We both know that we'd both be disappointed if that's all that happens."

"I understand, Marty."

The two mammals made the drive back to Pack Street. Coming upon familiar apartment buildings and vacant lots, Marty repeatedly tapped his head against the window. Half of him screamed that he was making the worst mistake of his life. The other half screamed back for him to simply live in the moment.

"We're here," Red declared.


	4. Chapter 4

**[Chapter Four]**

**A matter of seconds later...**

Nothing about Red's apartment complex appeared any different from the various other buildings that made up Pack Street— many windows needed to get fixed, many trash cans needed to get emptied, many wooden steps needed to get replaced, and so on. Yet Marty still felt this emotionally-charged aura flowing all across the old brick walls and out onto the body of the fox that stood leaning against a wooden doorframe. The stoat carefully measured out every step as he walked over to Red's side. Every move made him tingle with anticipation.

"Just let me unlock this," Red remarked, fumbling in a pocket, "and I'll... sorry, give me a moment."

"You're a first floor guy, huh," Marty muttered, the stoat straining to come up with something coherent to say.

"I told you. I'm very lucky." The fox slowly swung the door open and made his way inside. "Now, then, let me get the lights."

"Sure."

Marty didn't have a clear set of expectations for what he'd find inside of Red's apartment. He still wound up feeling more than a bit surprised. For all of the fox's flamboyance, his abode featured plain, cream-colored walls with few adornments stretching out above a widely open grey floor. Glancing all about, the stoat's eyes moving from the various cabinets in the kitchen area to the many small tables spread around the living room, Marty constantly noticed this harsh contrast between black, grey, and white displayed everywhere.

The large number of bookshelves and the sheer number of materials— hardcover and paperback alike— shoved inside of them impressed the stoat. He didn't mind how every spare inch of counter space otherwise had some random item stowed atop it. Pill bottles sat alongside piles of receipts as well as pairs of paper towels and little stacks of washcloths— all of it seemingly without any rhyme or reason.

"It's not that messy, maybe, but it's messier than I'd like," Red remarked, the fox shutting and locking the door, "and... well, honestly, I don't think that I'll ever get my apartment to a state where I like it."

"Everything's fine." Marty shrugged.

"So, here we are," Red said, the fox scratching all along his back.

"So..." Marty repeated. His mind kept flashing through various scenarios while his body began to sweat all over. The stoat gazed upward at the fox's somewhat confused yet still smiling expression— Red making himself, in Marty's eyes, seem even more handsome than usual.

"Marty," the fox began, standing over the stoat as they both slowly migrated to the middle of the living room, "you don't have to—"

"Red," the stoat interjected, Marty shutting his eyes tightly and raising both arms in the air, "make the first move. Please."

The fox immediately clutched the stoat by the shoulders and hoisted the smaller mammal straight upwards. Red then held Marty in the air without comment for a few seconds. Not exactly enjoying the feeling of being treated like a ragdoll, the stoat kicked his legs together a bit.

"Marty, we're both guys, and we're both predators too," Red started to say, "but I've always had a thing about taking the lead role. Taking it and not stopping with it. Is that okay with you?"

"Please," the stoat let out in a soft, whimpering voice, Marty's eyes still being shut, "do what you want with me."

Red shoved Marty forward and gave the stoat a tight, passionate kiss. The fox slid his head from side to side as their lips mashed together. Both mammals let out loud, long groans. It only took a matter of seconds before Red finally shoved his tongue deep within Marty's mouth.

All of those painful inhibitions previously raging through the stoat's mind had evaporated. Marty dug his paws into Red's back as firmly as the stoat could manage. He felt the commanding fox wiggle a needy tongue along his teeth, and waves of bliss began to swell up all throughout his senses. Sensing Red's claws digging into his rear end— the fox's piercing force starting to tear at the fabric— seemed to make the moment perfect.

The kiss soon grew sloppier and sloppier. Red's tongue kept on violently slithering throughout every corner of the stoat's mouth. Foxy drool combined with his own wetness dripped off of Marty's face onto his neck. Every new sensation seemed better than the last, but the stoat hadn't nearly had enough. Marty pulled himself into Red's embrace just as much as the commanding fox's grip tightly locked the stoat into place.

Neither mammal understood why the kiss ended. Marty and Red easing their heads backward at the same time simply happened— both of their bodies likely demanded the chance for some air. They let out loud pants while gazing at each other's blush-coated faces. Both mammals barely moved for a long while. They didn't need to.

After some indeterminate amount of time, the fox started to march over to the bedroom. Still clutching the stoat firmly against his chest and neck, Red tumbled onto the big bed and positioned himself against a set of puffy pillows. Marty took it all in without a word.

The fox abruptly opened his mouth up wide. Marty didn't know how to react. He immediately let out a loud moan of raw pleasure, however, after Red began scraping his teeth all across the stoat's neckline. The nibbling didn't last nearly long enough, and the stoat made a tiny noise of disappointment when the fox pulled his head away once more.

Feeling Red's big, wet tongue slipping around his ears, though, caused the stoat to shiver and immediately brought back all the tingles of sheer delight. The fox shifted his mouth all around the top of the stoat's head, and Marty resumed his deep, intense panting. The lines between kissing, nibbling, slurping, and teeth scraping quickly lost their meaning. Red entirely enveloped both ears with his mouth. He then slid his head down and gave the stoat's cheeks some loving attention before finishing along Marty's neckline— leaving the area above the small mammals' chest soaking wet.

"My... my clothes..." Marty murmured.

Without a single word, Red bit the bottom of Marty's shirt. He tugged it upwards. It only took a few seconds before the whole thing came off— exposing the stoat's naked belly and chest.

For all his understanding of language, Marty didn't have a word for what Red's mouth proceeded to do to him. Slurp-filled kisses filled with little rubs of sharp teeth against hot fur traveled up and down every last inch of Marty's sides. The stoat had quit thinking by that point anyways. Marty simply laid back and allowed huge wave after huge wave of total pleasure batter his senses. Every single drop of drool on his belly and chest seemed to feel better than the last.

Red finished with the stoat's navel— the bigger mammal giving the tiny spot such an intense licking that it might as well had been the tastiest dessert in the world. Marty then witnessed the fox putting on a look of smug satisfaction. The stoat sucked in a deep breath while Red moved around a bit.

"That was like, God, a bath... the most erotic bath ever," Marty murmured.

"Not really that," the fox remarked, Red playfully sticking out his tongue into the air, "hell, I didn't even touch any of your four paws."

"You want to shove my paws into your mouth?" Marty asked.

"It's a primo fantasy of mine and all," the fox admitted, a look of embarrassment flashing over him, "but those usually aren't an erogenous zone for guys—"

"Shit, Red! Do it!" Marty thrust up his arms and legs before making a soft moan.

The stoat cried out in utter delight as Red confidently licked along the end of his left leg. The nearby paw slipped right into the bigger mammal's wanting mouth. The powerful emotions caused Marty to shiver all over. One by one, all four of the stoat's paws received the same slurp-filled kisses complete with tender nibbles that the front of him had just enjoyed. When Red gripped Marty's right arm and pulled the last paw out— a loud, wet popping noise sounding off— the stoat let out the longest, deepest moan that he could ever remember making.

"Hell, Marty, is everything an erogenous zone for you?" Red asked with a bunch of chuckles.

"I feel overwhelmed. And my Goddamn pants are still on."

"Let's fix that."

Red's aggressive teeth made short work of the stoat's pants and underwear. Marty's clothes all resting in a little pile at the edge of the bed, the fox sat on his knees. A few seconds of silence passed. Marty's erection throbbed despite the stoat's embarrassment.

"I know that you're used to differently sized guys with proportionate parts down there. I'm... I'm big for a tube mammal. Seriously."

"You're perfect."

Before Marty even understood what had happened, Red had leaned down and taken every single inch of the stoat's erection into his mouth. Moaning was a thing of the past. Marty let out a passionate yell. The fox's tongue massaged all up and down Marty's length, and the stoat curled up in pure joy. The loud sucking noises seemed like the sweetest music that Marty had ever heard.

The scraping of Red's teeth along his balls, however, triggered something overwhelming. The stoat violently shook in place. He braced his paws upon Red's face and shut his eyes. The stoat had more than had enough.

"Red! Oh, God, Red! Red!" Marty screamed out in full force.

The fox wiggled his head a little bit. The stoat— his senses still reeling from the bliss-soaked power of his climax— frantically rubbed his paws all over Red's face. The fox paused for a long moment. He then spat out the stoat's flaccid thing onto the smaller mammal's thighs before leaning back.

"I'm, shit, I'm really sorry. God, how pathetic... I didn't even last more than thirty seconds," Marty groaned out. He held his paws upon his face and kicked the bed. "I didn't give you chance not to swallow either." 

"Hah, like I'd turn down an opportunity to swallow," Red remarked, smirking.

"You're... you're not mad?" Marty asked, the stoat brushing his head against a pillow as embarrassment still flowed all through him.

"Of course not," Red replied, and he pulled himself into a spot running alongside the stoat's place, "guys last as long as they last. I've got exes who never made it past a minute before. It's fine."

"Well, at any rate," Marty began, trying his best to put on a romantic tone of voice, "you've done a lot for me, Red. I should be doing some things for you, shouldn't I?" He gently rubbed a paw against the fox's crotch. "Well?"

"You read my mind." Red grinned as he sat on his knees and began sliding out of his shorts. The fox's bright white briefs quickly followed. Red then took a moment to swing his erection in the air before gently reaching his paws down and aiming his length at Marty's face.

"It's... gorgeous," Marty murmured.

"You know it." The fox's smug expression made his feelings crystal clear.

"I, well, I sure think that I know what to do," the stoat began, his paws brushing little circles upon the fox's balls, "but that doesn't mean that I'll be any good at it. I've never given... this... to another guy."

"It's nowhere near difficult." Red gently pet all around the stoat's head while moving his erection into position. "Just close your eyes, open your mouth, and let your natural feelings come out."

Marty gave the tip of Red's erection a little kiss. It felt fine. He did it again. It still felt fine. The stoat then shut his eyes and enveloped the tip as best as he could manage.

"Good." Red's petting got more aggressive, his claws slipping all around Marty's ears. The stoat tried to lick and slurp in the inside of his mouth. An approving groan from the fox caused Marty to lean a bit forwards and take in even more of the throbbing length.

The stoat had little clue if his moves did the right thing. Still, the fox's erection kept on pulsing inside of Marty's mouth, and the stoat kept trying to take in as much as possible. Marty didn't exactly enjoy the whole process. He didn't exactly mind it either.

A sudden grinding of Red's paws upon his head brought Marty out of the little routine. Slipping the fox's erection out of his mouth, Marty slid himself downward and begin rubbing his face upon Red's balls. The stoat then shifted himself to the side and started licking Red's shaft, Marty's paws migrating along the fox's erection as well.

Before long, Marty had curled his entire body all around Red's crotch. The stoat's constant wiggling brushed up against inch after inch of hot flesh. He still continuously slurped along all the tip of Red's erection as well.

"Marty, I need to tell you something," the fox suddenly remarked.

Fox and stoat made direct eye contact. A tinge of awkwardness flashed all across the bigger mammal's face. Marty sucked in a little breath.

"Everything that you've done to me has felt truly amazing," Red said, going on.

"You know it." Marty tried on a facade of smugness akin to the fox's previous attitude. It didn't fit at all. The stoat experienced a deep sinking feeling in the pit of his insides.

"But all this isn't going to do it for me."

"Do it," Marty repeated in a faint voice.

"I'm going to be totally honest." Red tilted his head to the side and rubbed a paw against his shoulder, the fox breaking eye contact. "I want your ass."

"Red, seriously," Marty began, a bit of irritation filtering through, "I'm a tube mammal. I don't have an ass."

"You've got a tailhole."

Marty flopped backward. He had absolutely no clue how to respond. At the same time, however, Marty knew that he had to say something— especially when Red pulled Marty's legs upwards and the fox licked his lips at the sight.

"Red, I... I love you."

"I love you too, Marty."

The stoat hesitated. He watched as the fox reached for a bottle on a shelf besides the bed. Legs still pulled upwards, Marty felt a sudden coolness on his rear end. He opened his mouth up wide but no words came out. The coolness got even stronger as the stoat felt Red's paw poking and prodding his sensitive spot back there— it seemed both pleasurable and uncomfortable at the same time.

"Red, seriously," Marty finally remarked, his body shivering as one of the fox's claws wiggled about inside his back entrance, "you can use all the lube you want. Fondle me all you want too. It won't matter."

"You think so, huh?" The fox's expression looked hurt.

"I know so. You can't push a soup can into a straw, Red. You shouldn't even try."

Marty chattered his teeth together as he felt Red slipping in as much as the fox's paw as possible. The stoat thought that he had to draw a line. At the same time, though, a raw instinct from deep inside of him demanded that he submit to the fox's advances. Marty's body also liked all of the attention back there more by the second.

"I dated an otter before, Marty. Tube mammals are stretchy. They just are."

"Is... Red, come on," Marty began, and he came to a realization that he didn't exactly enjoy, "is this literally the only way that you'll cum?"

"I'm not sure, but I think that it's the only way," Red declared. Sensing the stoat's pervasive worry, the fox tried to put on a reassuring tone of voice. "Relax, Marty! Not only do I promise not to hurt you, but I promise that I only need to work the tip!"

"Only the tip?" Marty leaned his head backwards and sucked in an immense breath. "I'm going to hold you to that, Red."

"Just think of it as a little experiment."

The stoat had already gotten used to all the poking and prodding of his back entrance. Marty didn't even notice when Red shifted around in place— the fox's face getting lined up underneath the stoat's legs. Marty sure noticed, however, when Red suddenly shoved his tongue as deep inside the stoat's sensitive spot as it could go.

Yet another set of mixed emotions came through in waves. Marty drooled upon a nearby pillow as he felt Red's long, wet thing slithering inside of his body. Some instinct yelled at the stoat to put a stop to something that unnatural and wrong. Another instinct yelled right back for the stoat to try and grind against the fox's mouth. The latter won out.

Red slipped his tongue out as abruptly as it went in. The stoat covered his face with both paws. He shivered again and again. Loose as he felt on his rear end, Marty was still racked with nervousness.

"You enjoy that?" Red asked.

"Felt weird as hell, but I did," Marty replied.

"Normally," the fox began, "I like to rim for a really long time. Another part of me is painfully jealous, though, and needs to get helped as soon as possible."

"Go slow," Marty demanded, "and be careful."

"I know I'm being really insistent," Red said, the fox brushing his paws all around his face, "but I just really want us to try this together."

"You can go ahead." Marty braced himself.

The fox duly seized the stoat by the shoulders and pressed him downward. Marty shut his eyes. He sensed a soft poke at his back entrance. Red's paws clenching his sides, the stoat twitched over and over again. Marty vowed to himself that he'd give the fox's crazy idea a chance. He figured that he owed Red that. They loved each other. That meant a little sacrifice.

It went in. Marty's tongue shot out of his mouth as his arms frantically waved around. For the first several seconds, every part of his body below the waist felt as if it was on fire. Yet, right afterwards, an intense feeling of raw joy began surging up his backside. The warring sensations appeared like nothing that he'd ever experienced before.

"Holy shit!" The stoat cried out.

For the fox, though, it all seemed simple. The sheer blast of incredible pleasure caused him to let out a torrent of loud, passionate groans while sweat began to dot all across his forehead. Red hadn't felt that satisfied in years, and he had just gotten started. A loving gaze went out upon the stoat.

"Doing fine down there, Marty?" Red asked in between pants.

Half of the stoat wanted to attack the fox before dashing across the bed and speeding out the apartment. The other half wanted to beg the fox to thrust in a whole other inch of throbbing warmth. Neither half won. Marty simply smacked his paws against the fox's shoulders and began sweating profusely.

"I," the stoat murmured, "I don't know."

"Can you," the fox began before making a series of light moans, "endure it for a little while longer?"

"I'll... try."

The two mammals then held themselves in place without a word. Neither of them had much of an understanding of time at the moment. They simply immersed themselves in their conflicting feelings. Finally, Red reached a point where he attempted to push himself in a tiny bit further.

"Oh, no, tip means tip! Nothing more!" Marty called out. He shut his eyes and rapidly brushed his head against the fox's chest. "It already feels weird enough!"

"You starting to like it at all, Marty?" Red asked, a soft sense of warmth pervading his voice.

"No! Yes!" Sweat poured like waterfalls off of the stoat's body. "Maybe! God, if I didn't love you, then I'd sock you right in the face!"

"Shit, you look cuter than ever!"

Red laughed as a few shivers went up his spine. The stoat's red-coated face seemed perfect to the fox. Still, though, the fact that the bigger mammal was having the time of his life only made Marty's internal war more heated.

"For God's sake, cum already!" The stoat finally yelled. He needed to bring the crazy experiment to an end.

"What's that? You want me to cum in you?"

"Yes! Shit, I just said that!"

"You want my hot stuff in your hot ass? Feel it in your tailhole? Know that I've marked your cute body as my territory?" Red's eyes fluttered as the dirty talk brought him closer and closer to the edge.

"Listen, bastard!" Marty thrust his arms out and jerked his paws against the fox's shirt. "I can't take much more of this! You're going to empty your balls inside of me, and you're going to do it now! Right now!"

Red suddenly tucked his head down and kissed Marty on the lips once again. The stoat's paws flung up to the fox's cheeks. Red's own paws did the same to Marty's cheeks.

A hot, tingling sensation abruptly shooting through his body caused Marty to break the kiss. The fox grinned and made a happy sigh. The climax clearly gave him everything that he'd needed and more. Red then clutched Marty's head and pulled it up against his neck.

"Does... does this mean..." Marty whispered.

The stoat felt all the prodding pressure from his rear end suddenly cease. He looked straight down, and he saw the fox's still throbbing erection flopped off upon a pillow. A trail of sticky whiteness oozed out from Red's length and ran up the stoat's leg. Waves of conflicting feelings still filtered up from below Marty's waist, but he had the opportunity to relax. The stoat took it. The fox's soft cuddling motions made Marty's decision all the easier.

The two mammals remained close for a quite a while. Eventually, though, a set of loud beeps from the pile of clothes on the bed caused the fox to stir. When Red reached over for the smartphone in his pocket, Marty gradually swung his arms upwards. The stoat got gently dropped upon one of the pillows.

"It's probably nothing." Red held up the device and tapped its screen a few times. "Yep."

"Red, we should talk," Marty remarked, though the stoat felt too comfortable to move.

"We should," the fox began as he slid off of the bed. He let the point linger, however, as started to put his clothes back on. Sheepishly shrugging a few times while avoiding eye contact, the fully dressed fox finally leaned across the edge of the bed and held one of Marty's paws. "I'm sorry, Marty."

"Okay."

"No, it's not okay." The fox sighed. "I really shouldn't have pushed you. It was totally wrong of me to."

"Red, look," Marty let the fox's paw go as he headed off to retrieve his own clothes, "I seriously don't want you to apologize. Today has been one of the best days I've had in a long time."

"Including the time that we've spent in my apartment so far?"

"Yes, including all that," Marty went on, "but promise me, okay? Vow that you'll ease up on the experiments?" The fully dressed stoat hopped off of the bed. "Don't make me run when I need to crawl."

"I promise."

"I mean, well, I genuinely thought that I was straight yesterday," Marty concluded.

The fox let out yet another laugh. "True. I'll keep that mind."

"So, I guess," Marty began, the stoat heading over to the kitchen. He let the words linger.

"So what?" the fox asked.

"Want to simply hang out?"

Without saying a word, the fox marched over to the kitchen, stepped in front of the refrigerator, yanked open the door, and picked up a pair of cream sodas. Marty hopped up onto the long black sofa. Red tossed a soda over to the stoat and reached for the television remote. Marty idly rubbed all across his eyes. The screen started flashing images of runway models.

"Watching one of those 'guide to style' programs?" Marty asked.

"Yep." Red took a long swig from his soda.

"Being gay is one thing, but this is like... like... gay-gay."

"You know it." The fox leaned to the side and rubbed heads with the stoat.

**Two days later in the middle of Pack Street...**

"So, I look at the rabbit, and I force myself to smile. I say: 'it's trapezoid shaped'. Simple." Anneke slapped her arms against her bright red dress and wiggled her head from side to side. Though she leaned back upon the nearby doorframe a few seconds later, her irritation remained every bit as strong.

"And?" Betty asked, the wolf's emotions guarded behind her simple expression. The wind blew her baggy white t-shirt around a little.

"He stares right up at me, and he answers back, I swear, 'what's a trapezoid'?"

"Damn." Betty scratched her chin.

"I mean, come on," Anneke remarked, the aardwolf raising her voice, "he had to have gone to middle school, at least? Am I right? Yet he had to perfectly fit that 'dumb bunny popping up in Zootopia fresh from Podunk' or whatever stereotype. Anyways, that's what happened on my trip to the hardware store."

"Like I told you before," Betty began, stepping a little closer to her female companion, "I don't mind at all having to fix—"

"Good morning!"

The two mammals turned around. They watched as Marty— the stoat marching down the sidewalk with his arms swinging outward while a gigantic smile shone forth from his face— appeared in front of them and wiggled in a big circle. Anneke and Betty blinked a few times.

"And isn't it a lovely morning?" Marty asked them both. Sweetness seemed to practically drip off of his words.

"Sure, why not?" Betty muttered back, the wolf tilting her eyes back.

"I'll catch you two beautiful, wonderful ladies later!" The stoat waved before returning to his bliss-soaked march.

The two other mammals remained quiet for a few seconds. When Marty finally got out of earshot, they both turned to each other and loudly chuckled. Betty opened up the apartment door and idly tapped all along the cheap wood.

"What do you think is his... lack of a problem?" Anneke asked with eyebrows raised.

"I can confidently say that it's one of three options," Betty answered, a conclusive tone to her voice as she counted around her left paw, "first, he's now a drug addict. Second, he's got a girlfriend. Third, he's got a boyfriend."

"Which one's best?"

"Probably the last." Betty put on her own big smile as she took a step back into her place. "I can't pretend that I don't enjoy picturing him being in the middle of some rant only to suddenly have a hard dick plug his mouth shut."

"Sure." Anneke let out a few giggles before idly kicking the sidewalk. "What if he tries to be a 'top', though?"

"He's not a 'top'."

"That's most likely right, but can you really, though, know—"

"I know." Betty had a tone of absolute finality to her voice.

For his part, Marty had made it to a particular apartment complex that featured a bunch of fellow pack members. He stepped into the commons area and found a fuzzy-looking hyena tuning a guitar while lying across an old couch. The stoat scurried right over.

"Hey, Marty!" Ozzy called out.

"Hey!"

"I guess you've been walking all over lately? That mean that your legs are finally better?" the hyena asked, a hopeful expression flashing across his face.

"Yep!"

"It's wonderful to hear that," Ozzy said, calmly sliding the guitar to the side and sitting up straight.

"Hey, so," Marty began, bouncing onto the edge of the couch, "you have that book like we talked about before?"

Ozzy gestured towards a small table sitting a little bit away from the two mammals. Marty looked over. His huge smile somehow grew even wider.

"Thanks for letting me be the first one to look at it," the hyena said, "I guess it might have sounded out of character—"

"It really wasn't, though."

"But, yeah, like I said before," Ozzy went on, "I needed to spend a day curled up while reading something positive. I'm not going to pretend like I combed through it all or that I didn't find half of it zooming way over my head— it's written for college professors by a college professor, right? Still, it was nice reading through the sections on how awesome hyenas are. It feels good to be... like... formally confirmed or whatever."

"I'd love to spend the rest of the day with you," Marty started to say, the stoat slinking over to the table and seizing the silver-colored book, "but I've got to do something."

Ozzy made a little wave and reached back for his guitar. "I'll be right here for a while, probably. You know me."

Marty clutched the book against his chest. He then silently made his way up the stairs. The journey only took a matter of seconds. The stoat then knocked all over one particular door.

"Oh, uh, Marty?" Remmy muttered, the haggard-looking sheep sticking himself halfway out of his apartment. The ram watched the stoat nod. "Good morning, I guess? What... brings you here?" Remmy's expression didn't hide his confusion.

"Story-time at the library is a great thing," Marty answered, "and it's great how you've participated. After coming across a certain new item, well, I've decided to bring story-time to you." The stoat held up the book. "Lead by me."

"It... says... 'Many Claws, One Paw: The History of Packs And Other Predator Groupings'," Remmy read aloud. He idly scratched all over his Meles Meles t-shirt. "Seems kind of interesting, I think?" Though he picked up the thick tome with his hooves, the ram avoided eye contract with Marty as best he could. "You're saying that you're going to read this to me?"

"Yep."

"Marty," the ram began, "now's not exactly a good—"

"Remmy." The stoat hopped upon the ram's body, Marty's paws going for Remmy's collar. The two mammals' eyes met. "I said it's story-time."

"Yep." The ram froze as he felt the sheer force of Marty's confident stare.

"You don't have a choice."

Remmy let out a bleat.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for reading!


End file.
